“I don’t make them out at all,” said the principal. “That is,—oh, the little boy, of course, is just a good little fellow, not too bright, but with the sunniest, sweetest disposition in the world. It is the girl that puzzles me. It is incredible that she should know as much as she does, if she has been always deaf; yet it is evident that she has been taught no lip-reading; and her signs are none of the regular ones, but a language of her own, that she carries on with the little brother. She will not answer any questions that we put in writing; just smiles, a kind of thrilling smile, that goes to one’s heart,—I don’t know how to describe it,—and puts out her hand and strokes yours, and—and somehow, one doesn’t ask her anything more. She comes from an island, she writes, and the parents are dead, and she and the boy are wholly alone.” The trustee mused. “You had some kind of reference with them,” he asked. “Tell me all about it, will you? I have been away, you know, and only heard of the matter at third hand.” “It was about a month ago. I happened to be crossing the hall myself, on some errand, and heard James, the porter, talking to some one. He saw me, and called me to come. There on the steps stood these two children,—well, the girl is hardly a child in stature, being tall and slight, but she seems very young,—hand in hand. The girl held a note, and was trying to make him read it; James was asking question after question, and at each one she shook her head quietly. She made none of the usual signs, and he never thought of her being a deaf-mute. I took the note, and found it was addressed to me; it was from a young woman I know, a divinity student. She was appointed a travelling missionary this summer to sail about the coast, teaching and preaching, and, on some wild island or other,—I forgot its name,—she found these children. She asked me to be kind to the children; said that Isla was an interesting girl, and that her one desire was to have her little brother taught to speak. She said nothing about Isla herself learning; possibly she thought her too old for the school, or else that she would plead her own cause; and she has certainly done it. She is a strange, wild creature, but there is something unspeakably winning about her. Oh, and there was another thing that was very curious. I think James himself must tell you about that.” She rang the bell, and the porter appeared, a good-natured looking Irishman, not perhaps too clever. “James,” said Miss Stewart, “I want you to tell Mr. Upton about the strange man who came here just after I had taken the Heron children up-stairs, the day they first came.” James looked uneasy, and shuffled on his feet. “Sure, he was a crazy man, sir!” he said. “There did be no sense in the things he said to me, at all.” “No matter; let’s hear them, James. If we never heard any remarks but those with sense in them, we might live in silence a good part of our lives. Out with it!”