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When our visit was over we returned to the city, with hands full of country beauties, -- buttercups and daisies, and other wild flowers; and we gave them to the poor little city children we met in the streets. HELEN A. KELLER.

She prefers intellectual to manual occupations, and is not so fond of fancy work as many of the blind children are; yet she is eager to join them in whatever they are doing. She has learned to sew, knit and crochet fairly well, and is especially happy when allowed to sit and work with the other girls, occasionally stopping to chat with them. She has learned to use the Caligraph typewriter, and writes very correctly but not rapidly as yet, having had less than a month's practice.

More than two years ago a cousin taught her the telegraph alphabet by making the dots and dashes on the back of her hand with his finger. Whenever she meets any one who is familiar with this system, she is delighted to use it in conversation. I have found it a convenient medium of communicating with Helen when she is at some distance from me, for it enables me to talk with her by tapping upon the floor with my foot. She feels the vibrations and understands what is said to her.

She easily seizes upon any means of intercourse with others, and remembers most tenaciously the various methods of communication taught her by different people. Three years ago last June, 1888, when we were in Washington, Professor Bell taught her in a few moments an arrangement of the letters of the alphabet upon the palm of the hand which would enable anyone to converse with her. The letters are written on a glove. By touching these letters as one would the keys of a piano, words may be spelled, and after a little practice this method of communication can be very rapidly used; but Helen expresses her thoughts so quickly and naturally by means of the manual alphabet that I did not think it worth while to require her to use this new method, and I supposed she had forgotten it; but on meeting Professor Bell a year ago last May, she began to talk with him in this way.

While visiting the school for deaf-mutes at Beverly last summer she learned many of the natural signs and was greatly amused by them. Her quick and graceful movements delighted her deaf friends, and indeed few of them were more expert than their little visitor in reading the natural language of the heart.

As has been stated in previous reports, Helen's hands are not her only medium of contact with the outer world. Her whole body is so finely organized and so susceptible to outside influences that it renders her mind excellent service. She is conscious of the slightest change in the atmosphere. I never think of telling her the state of the weather. Awaking one morning after several days of continuous rain, she asked: "Are you not glad it is pleasant today?" When I asked her how she knew that it was pleasant, she replied: "I know it because I feel the brightness."

Quick music animates her, while slow strains have the opposite effect. She says: "Gay music makes my heart dance."

She derives much pleasure and not a little profit from taste and smell. She is passionately fond of flowers, and can quickly distinguish the different varieties by their fragrance; but I think the delicate texture and exquisite shapes of flowers afford her as much pleasure as their perfume. It is natural that people should pity Helen because she cannot see the flowers or the blue sky, or hear the songs of birds; and yet her enjoyment of what she can perceive is very great. Her vivid imagination and sympathetic nature enable her moreover to enter into the enjoyment of others. In a letter written to me, dated July 6, 1889, she says: --

I cannot see the bright faces of the flowers when I walk in the garden, but I know they are all around me, because I have touched them many times and because the air is full of their fragrance. Mother has some beautiful lilies now. Can you hear the lily-bells when they whisper together very softly?

To Helen all life is sacred, and she loves to think of the flowers and the trees as children of sweet Mother Nature. I have never known her to evince antipathy towards any living thing except a serpent; and last summer she made a great effort to overcome the natural aversion which she felt on touching the smooth, cold body of a snake, which one of the boys had killed. "We must try not to hate snakes," she said to her brother, "because they cannot help being very ugly."

Her love of animals and the tender care she takes of her pets need not here be referred to at length. She is now the happy possessor of a fine mastiff and a very gentle donkey, both gifts from a dear friend in Pennsylvania. The following is the letter she wrote to the gentleman on first receiving the puppy: --

SOUTH BOSTON, MASS., Nov. 20, 1889.

MY DEAR MR. WADE: -- I have just received a letter from my mother, telling me that the beautiful mastiff puppy you sent me had arrived in Tuscumbia safely. Thank you very much for the nice gift. I am very sorry that I was not at home to welcome her; but my mother and my baby sister will be very kind to her while her mistress is away. I hope she is not lonely and unhappy. I think puppies can feel very homesick, as well as little girls. I should like to call her Lioness, for your dog. May I? I hope she will be very faithful, -- and brave, too.