How long it took we can only guess. Some observers have taken it for granted that the first recognition of a face showed clear seeing had arrived. But the group of lights and shades is so different in each face that a baby might well learn to know them apart without distinct outlines. We have all seen French paintings in which the eyes, the smile, some high lights on cheek, chin, and nose, and a cloudy suggestion of hair and beard, are all that emerge from the dark canvas, and yet we may see easily for whom the portrait is meant. Our baby had recognized no face yet except her grandfather’s, where the beard, spectacles, and shining bald brow made recognition easy without any outline. But in another direction we get a plainer hint. I have spoken above of the joyous excitement roused in the baby by interesting sights (not only faces now, but also sundry bright things, and dangling, moving things) early in the month. By the middle of the month her smiles were fewer, and she looked about her earnestly and soberly; and in the last week I noted, without understanding, the expression of surprise that had come into her face as she gazed this way and that. The wide, surprised eyes must have meant that something new was before them. Were things perhaps beginning to separate themselves off to the baby’s sight in definitely bounded spaces? I must go on into the record of the next month for more light on this question: for the wonder grew day by day, and for weeks the baby was looking about her silently, studying her world. She would inspect the familiar room carefully for many minutes, looking fixedly at object after object till the whole field of vision was reviewed, then she would turn her head eagerly and examine another section; and when she had seen all she could from one place, she would fret till she was carried to another, and there begin anew her inspection of the room in its changed aspect--always with the look of surprise and eagerness, eyes wide and brows raised. We can only guess what was going on in the baby mind all this time; but I cannot resist the thought that I was looking on at that very process which must have taken place somewhere about this time--the learning to see things clear and separate, by running the eyes over their surfaces and about their edges. With this, sight and muscle sense alone, touch and muscle sense alone, had done all they could to reveal the world to the baby, and there lay close before her the further revelations that were to be made when touch, sight, and muscle sense could be focused all together on the objects about her. It was a wonderful sight to see, as the baby pressed forward to the new understanding, eager, amazed, and absorbed. VII SHE LEARNS TO GRASP, AND DISCOVERS THE WORLD OF THINGS