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"Blue and fair are her eyes,
Golden is her pretty hair,
And rosy and soft are her rounded cheeks."

Now, kindest father in all the world, your child must say good-bye. I hope Christmas at home will be a very happy day, and that the new year will be full of brightness and joy for you and mother and everyone. Teacher would send her love if she were here. You must not call her a fraud and a humbug. She is my own precious teacher, you know. From your loving and absent child, HELEN A. KELLER.

SOUTH BOSTON, June 10, 1891.

MY DEAR MOTHER: -- Time walks very fast indeed, but I shall not let him depart with this beautiful June day until I have written you a little letter. I hope you are all well at home, and enjoy the lovely June roses. It is beautiful and warm here in Boston now, and the country all about the city is fresh and green. A week ago last Sunday, Mrs. Hopkins, teacher and I went out of town in search of buttercups and daisies, and we came home with our arms full of the pretty, dainty things. So many things have happened since I wrote you that I hardly know what to write about first. We have had a great deal of company from different parts of our country. A little deaf child and his papa from New York, a Dr. Dye and his wife from Little Rock, Ark., a lady and her little daughter from Colorado, and many others. A week ago yesterday was Commencement day. The children looked very pretty in their white dresses and bright ribbons. I recited about Italy and the beautiful Italian cities. I saw many dear friends there, -- Dr. Brooks, Mrs. Howe, Dr. Eliot, Dr. Peabody, Mr. Dwight and many others. Before the exercises began Elsie Tyler sent me a pretty fan, which pleased baby Tom exceedingly. Last Saturday we went to see Dr. Brooks, and had a beautiful time with him. We laughed a great deal, and I told Dr. Brooks that I had found out that it is good to laugh, for laughter banishes all sad thoughts. Last night we had a singing recital in our hall. The Merry Warblers sang Jack and Jill, and it was so funny we clapped until they sang it over. A week from next Friday we are going to Gardiner, Me., and the Monday after we start for home. We shall only stay a short time at Hulton, because I am so very eager to get home. Oh, how glad I shall be to be with you and father and little sister once more! Please give my tender love to father, and kiss sister for me. And now, mother dear, so sweet and fair to me, good-bye, and I pray God bless and keep you happy forever. From your loving child,

HELEN A. KELLER.

Helen's affection is not concentrated on human beings alone. The never-failing springs of her love and sympathy overflow on all living creatures. Of the birds in the woods, the sheep in the pasture, the ass on which she rides, the dogs, the bees, the rabbits, she always speaks very kindly and cares for them most tenderly. She possesses in a large measure the sense of the common brotherhood of nature and the consequent magnetic sympathy with the inhabitants of the field and forest, which lends so singular a charm to her personality. She finds great happiness in ministering to the needs of the animals, and in having them around her. She has no fear of them. The very wolves, which all men were afraid to encounter, were caressed by St. Francis of Assisi. In the same way Helen expressed an earnest wish to have a tame bear brought to her from Africa. She can hardly believe that there is any harm in the creature. She never hesitates to lay her hand on fierce dogs which she finds in the shows, so implicit is her confidence in their powers of discrimination.

What Helen did for Tommy Stringer.

"Nature is fine in love; and, where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves."
Shakespeare.

Helen's intense love of everything that heaven and man have made, and most especially of all living and breathing creatures, opened to her a path to "fair, new spheres of pure activity," and led her to make strenuous efforts for the accomplishment of a grand deed, -- the rescue of a little boy afflicted like herself. Tommy Stringer, of Washington, Penn., became blind and deaf-mute as the result of a severe illness; but, unlike Helen, he had neither a comfortable and pleasant home nor affectionate parents to devote themselves to him. He was motherless, and, as his father was not able to take care of him, he drifted into the Allegheny general hospital, where he was kept for a time. Here he was in charge of a kind night nurse, who attended to his physical wants while she was on duty, and let him sleep from morning to evening. His future seemed anything but bright. He was destined to drop into one of the ordinary receptacles for helpless paupers. There was no other place for him in the great and wealthy state of Pennsylvania!

Rev. J. G. Brown of Pittsburgh, who made the acquaintance of Helen and of her teacher during their visit to Mr. William Wade of Hulton, Penn., heard of Tommy, and, in one of the notes which he exchanged with Miss Sullivan in the course of the summer, alluded to the condition of the unfortunate child. On being informed of this correspondence, Helen joined in it by writing to Dr Brown. In the answer which this gentleman sent to her some time after, he spoke of the opening of the new school for the blind in Pittsburgh, and of his failure to secure a tutor for the little blind and deaf-mute boy. To this letter Helen replied promptly as follows: --