might, he thought, be imperfectly regained, at some future time, if a
tedious, painful, and uncertain process of education were resorted to,
under the direction of an experienced teacher of the deaf and dumb. The
child, however, had such a horror of this resource being tried, when
it was communicated to her, that Mr. Blyth instinctively followed Mrs.
Peckover's example, and consulted the little creature's feelings, by
allowing her in this particular--and indeed in most others--to remain
perfectly happy and contented in her own way.

The first influence which reconciled her almost immediately to her
new life, was the influence of Mrs. Blyth. The perfect gentleness and
patience with which the painter's wife bore her incurable malady, seemed
to impress the child in a very remarkable manner from the first. The
sight of that frail, wasted life, which they told her, by writing, had
been shut up so long in the same room, and had been condemned to the
same weary inaction for so many years past, struck at once to Mary's
heart and filled her with one of those new and mysterious sensations
which mark epochs in the growth of a child's moral nature. Nor did these
first impressions ever alter. When years had passed away, and when Mary,
being "little" Mary no longer, possessed those marked characteristics of
feature and expression which gained for her the name of "Madonna," she
still preserved all her child's feeling for the painter's wife. However
playful her manner might often be with Valentine, it invariably changed
when she was in Mrs. Blyth's presence; always displaying, at such times,
the same anxious tenderness, the same artless admiration, and the
same watchful and loving sympathy. There was something secret and
superstitious in the girl's fondness for Mrs. Blyth. She appeared
unwilling to let others know what this affection really was in all its
depth and fullness: it seemed to be intuitively preserved by her in the
most sacred privacy of her own heart, as if the feeling had been part of
her religion, or rather as if it had been a religion in itself.

Her love for her new mother, which testified itself thus strongly and
sincerely, was returned by that mother with equal fervor. From the day
when little Mary first appeared at her bedside, Mrs. Blyth felt, to use
her own expression, as if a new strength had been given her to enjoy her
new happiness. Brighter hopes, better health, calmer resignation,
and purer peace seemed to f