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But we must leave Venice, lovely child of the sea, and hasten on to Naples. Naples is the most extensive city in Italy. It is situated on the northern shore of its own glorious bay. My friends have told me how beautiful the scenery around Naples is, and I can easily imagine that it is a charming place, with its lovely villas perched upon the mountain sides, its woods, its terraced gardens, its towers and castles. And just outside the city Vesuvius, king of volcanoes, lifts his gigantic head, and at his feet lies the ancient city of Herculaneum, buried beneath the cinders and lava which rushed like a mighty river from the mouth of angry Vesuvius; and twelve miles distant from Naples sleeps Herculaneum's sister, Pompeii, which was overwhelmed and buried in the same way.

In the museum at Naples there are many vases, bronzes and paintings which have been taken from the ruins of these cities. The king's summer palace is situated on the very summit of a hill that overlooks Naples. The Prince of Naples is named for his noble grandfather, Victor Emmanuel, and he will one day be king of this beautiful laud. Is it not a wonderful inheritance?

This composition is masterful. It abounds in clever touches, in picturesque imagery, in forcible and felicitous expression. The ideas therein contained are poetical in their essence, and as such they glisten through the simplest words. They are the result of a flight of the intellect made by the aid of imagination's wings.

Helen's appearance on the platform was hailed with tremendous applause, and the enthusiastic reception accorded to her by the audience was an appreciative tribute to her extraordinary talents.

Doubtless there are numerous seeing and sightless children whose love of books is ardent, and who are very happy in their company; but none of them can excel Helen in this respect. Her place is at the head of the line. She is an insatiable reader and a true worshipper of literature. She lives and moves and has her being in it. She thinks with Cowper, that --

"Books are not seldom talismans and spells."

She greedily devours every page printed in raised letters that falls into her hands. Her friends watch her with wonder as she crouches in a corner of the sofa absorbed in a book and turning over its leaves with energetic rapidity. In the course of a single day she can go through a whole story occupying a volume of moderate size, and then in the evening entertain the family circle by giving them an accurate account of it. This is what she actually did last winter, to the delight of her associates.

When a gentleman asked her whether she was a republican or a democrat in her political views and affiliation's, she replied significantly: "I am on the fence. I must study civil government, political economy and philosophy, before I jump."

Helen is possessed of such an acute and penetrating understanding that nothing escapes her notice. Her faculty of remembering things is not less remarkable. The minutest details of history, chronology, zoölogy, biography, metaphysics, indeed, of any branch of study of which she has once become cognizant by means of the tips of her fingers or otherwise, she treasures in her memory and uses at will. In this manner she gathers a vast amount of knowledge, and she often astonishes her teachers and schoolmates with startling remarks on various subjects. The following extract, copied from my memoranda, is inserted here as one of the numerous illustrations of this point, which could be given did space permit: --

FEB. 1, 1891. -- I have just called on Helen to see how she was, and I was delighted to find her improving steadily. She was in excellent spirits, and as bright as she could be. She looked a little pale; but her countenance was very clear and her mind as brilliant as ever. Her first and most pressing question was as to whether I had decided to send to Pittsburg for little Tommy Stringer, and have him brought to Boston and placed under her special care and tutorship. "I will teach him and look after him," said she, with great emphasis. In pleading the case of this victim of triple affliction she was fired with an eloquent earnestness which was resistless. Nothing but a definite promise could satisfy and pacify her. When this was given she was overjoyed, and turned the conversation to other subjects. She asked me who Memnon and Sappho and Tantalus and Orpheus and Phidias and Amphion were. Evidently she had found these names in Mrs. Anagnos's poem, entitled the "Deaf Beethoven," which she had read in raised print, and wished to have a full explanation of all of them. After perusing this poem she made the following touching remark: "I am 'wedded to silence,' like the great master, but I am very glad that my teacher is not."

Helen has an extraordinary power of assimilating what she reads or learns by means of intercourse with others, of making it quite her own, and of reproducing it with her image and superscription. In reading, as well as in ascertaining the qualities of all tangible objects which are within her reach, she uses her fingers unweariedly; but, when she arrives at the limit, beyond which the material organs cannot be of further service to her, she takes to the sensibilities that perceive more than the senses can, as the mariner launches from the creek to the bay, as the bird mounts from the twig to the air.