The result of Mr. Blyth’s Adventure in the traveling Circus, and of the events which followed it, was that little Mary at once became a member of the painter’s family, and grew up happily, in her new home, into the young lady who was called “Madonna” by Valentine, by his wife, and by all intimate friends who were in the habit of frequenting the house. Mr. Blyth’s first proceeding, after he had brought the little girl home with him, was to take her to the most eminent aural surgeon of the day. He did this, not in the hope of any curative result following the medical examination, but as a first duty which he thought he owed to her, now that she was under his sole charge. The surgeon was deeply interested in the case; but, after giving it the most careful attention, he declared that it was hopeless. Her sense of hearing, he said, was entirely gone; but her faculty of speech, although it had been totally disused (as Mrs. Peckover had stated) for more than two years past, might, he thought, be imperfectly regained, at some future time, if a tedious, painful, and uncertain process of education were resorted to, under the direction of an experienced teacher of the deaf and dumb. The child, however, had such a horror of this resource being tried, when it was communicated to her, that Mr. Blyth instinctively followed Mrs. Peckover’s example, and consulted the little creature’s feelings, by allowing her in this particular--and indeed in most others--to remain perfectly happy and contented in her own way.