"I dreamed a dream this night, mither,
That maks my heart right wae.

"I dreamed that Annie of Lochroyan,
The flower of a' her kin,
Was standing mournin' at my door,
But nane wad let her in."

I sprang to my feet, and opened the hidden door. There she stood, white,
asleep, with closed eyes, singing like a bird, only with a heartful of
sad meaning in every tone. I stepped aside, without speaking, and she
passed me into the room. I closed the door, and followed her. She lay
already upon the couch, still and restful--already covered with my
plaid. I sat down beside her, waiting; and gazed upon her in wonderment.
That she was possessed of very superior intellectual powers, whatever
might be the cause of their having lain dormant so long, I had already
fully convinced myself; but I was not prepared to find art as well as
intellect. I had already heard her sing the little song of two verses,
which she had learned from her nurse. But here was a song, of her own
making as to the music, so true and so potent, that, before I knew
anything of the words, it had surrounded me with a dream of the place in
which the scene of the ballad was laid. It did not then occur to me
that, perhaps, our idiosyncrasies were such as not to require even the
music of the ballad for the production of _rapport_ between our minds,
the brain of the one generating in the brain of the other the vision
present to itself.

I sat and thought:--Some obstruction in the gateways, outward, prevented
her, in her waking hours, from uttering herself at all. This
obstruction, damming back upon their sources the out-goings of life,