While taking so deep an interest in matters intellectual, and living in a world of her own, penetrated by no outward sight or sound, Miss Keller’s tastes are as normal as those of any girl of nineteen. She is full of animal spirit, dearly loves a practical joke, is fond of dancing, enjoys outside exercise and sport, and has the natural desire of every healthy young maiden to wear pretty things and look her best. In answer to a question on this latter subject, she said:— “I used to be very fond of dress, but now I am not particularly so; it is such a bother. We ought to like dress, though, and wear pretty things, just as the flowers put on beautiful colors. It would be fine,” she continued, laughing gleefully, “if we were made with feathers and wings, like the birds. Then we would have no trouble about dress, and we could fly where we pleased.” “You would fly to Greece, first, I suppose?” “No,” she replied, and her laughing face took on a tender, wistful look, “I should go home first, to see my loved ones.” HEREDITY AND CHILDHOOD. Miss Keller’s home is at Tuscumbia, Alabama, where she was born on June 27, 1880. Some of the best blood of both the north and the south flows in her veins, and it is probable that her uncommon mental powers are in no small degree due to heredity. Her father, Arthur H. Keller, a polished southern gentleman, with a large, chivalrous nature, fine intelligence and attractive manners, was the descendant of a family of Swiss origin, which had settled in Virginia and mixed with some of the oldest families in that state. He served as a captain in the Confederate army during the Civil War, and, at the time of Helen’s birth, was the owner and editor of a paper published at Tuscumbia. On the maternal side she is descended from one of the Adams families of Massachusetts, and the same stock of Everetts from which Edward Everett and Reverend Edward Everett Hale sprang. Helen Keller was not born deaf and blind, although, at the age of eighteen months, when a violent fit of convulsions deprived her of the faculties of seeing and hearing, she had not attempted to speak. When a child, she was as notable for her stubbornness and resistance to authority as she is to-day for her gentleness and amiability. Indeed, it was owing to an exhibition of what seemed a very mischievous spirit that her parents sought a special instructor for her. Having discovered the use of a key, she locked her mother into a pantry in a distant part of the house, where, her hammering on the door not being heard by the servants, she remained imprisoned for several hours. Helen, seated on the floor outside, felt the knocking on the door, and seemed to be enjoying the situation intensely when at length jailer and prisoner were found. She was then about six years old, and, after this escapade, Mr. and Mrs. Keller felt that the child’s moral nature must be reached and her mental powers cultivated, if possible. HELEN’S FIRST TEACHER.