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I never have to spell a proper name to her but once. The name of the gentleman who is boarding with us is Mr. Goodnow, and Helen always calls him by it. I suppose Laura's instructors did not teach her titles, because they thought she would not perceive the difference between the name and the title, but I have made Helen pause after Mr., Mrs., or Uncle, as the case may be, and when she is a little farther advanced I can very easily explain this to her.

She sits for an hour or two every day finding the words she knows in her books, and whenever she comes to one she screams with delight. I can now tell her to go up stairs or down, to go into the hall or room, to lock or unlock the door, to sit or stand, walk or run, lie or creep, and she understands me. Whenever I give her a new word, especially a word expressing action, like hop or jump, or any of those already mentioned, she throws her arms around me and kisses me.

JUNE 19. -- My little pupil continues to manifest the same eagerness to learn as at first. Every waking moment is spent in the endeavor to satisfy her innate desire for knowledge, and her mind works so incessantly that we have feared for her health. But her appetite, which left her a few weeks ago, has returned, and her sleep seems more quiet and natural. She will be seven years old the 27th of this month. Her height is four feet, one inch, and her head measures twenty inches in circumference, the line being drawn around the head so as to pass over the prominences of the parietal and frontal bones. Above this line the head rises one and one-fourth inches.

During our walks she keeps up a continual spelling, and delights to accompany it with actions such as skipping, hopping, jumping, running, walking fast, walking slow, and the like. When she drops stitches she says, "Helen wrong, teacher will cry." If she wants water she says, "Give Helen drink water." She knows four hundred words besides numerous proper nouns. In one lesson I taught her these words, -- bedstead, mattress, sheet, blanket, comforter, spread, pillow. The next day I found that she remembered all but spread. The same day she had learned, at different times, the words, house, weed, dust, swing, molasses, fast, slow, maple-sugar and counter, and she had not forgotten one of these last. This will give you an idea of the retentive memory she possesses. She can count to thirty very quickly, and can write seven of the square hand letters and the words which can be made with them. She seems to understand about writing letters and is impatient to "write Frank letter." She enjoys punching holes in paper with the stiletto and I supposed it was because she could examine the result of her work; but we watched her one day, and I was much surprised to find that she imagined she was writing a letter. She would spell "Eva" (a cousin of whom she is very fond) with one hand, then make believe write it; then spell "sick in bed," and write that. She kept this up for nearly an hour. She was (or imagined she was) putting on paper the things which had interested her. When she had finished she carried it to her mother and spelled, "Frank letter," and gave it to her brother to take to the post office. She has been with me to take letters to the post office.

She recognizes instantly a person whom she has once met, and spells the name. Unlike Laura, she is fond of gentlemen, and we notice that she makes friends with a gentleman sooner than with a lady.

There is seldom a cloud seen upon her face and we observe that it grows brighter every day. She is always ready to share whatever she has with those about her, often keeping but very little for herself. She is very fond of dress and of all kinds of finery, and is very unhappy when she finds a hole in any thing she is wearing. She will insist on having her hair put in curl papers when she is so sleepy she can scarcely stand. She discovered a hole in her boot the other morning, and, after breakfast, she went to her father and spelled, "Helen new boot Simpson" (her brother) "buggy store man." One can easily see her meaning.

In farther illustration of her love of dress I quote from a letter of earlier date: --

Have I told you that Helen has a great notion of "primping"? Nothing pleases her better than to be dressed in her best clothes. The other day I told her to put her hat on and I would take her to walk. I was changing my dress at the time and I suppose Helen thought I was dressing up. She went down-stairs in a great hurry, and showed her mother that she wanted her best dress on. Mrs. Keller paid no attention to her. Hence she decided to fix herself. When I called for her I found the most comical looking child imaginable. She had wet her hair until the water was running in little streams in all directions, and if it did not look sleek nothing ever did. She had found her father's hair-oil and put no small quantity of that on as a "finishing touch." Then she had oiled her face. She had seen people put glycerine on their faces and she probably thought they did it for the sake of appearance. Then she took the baby's powder, and applied that in small patches, so that she looked like a little darkey with a white eruption. When she had completed her toilet to her own satisfaction she came for her mother's approval with such a self-satisfied air. Of course she found us both laughing as if we would die. You never saw any one look so comical. I assure you we had hard work to make her dress according to our ideas.