She would sit for hours, on fresh
summer evenings, watching the mere waving of the leaves; her face
flushed, her whole nervous organization trembling with the sensations
of deep and perfect happiness which that simple sight imparted to her.
All the riches and honors which this world can afford, would not have
added to her existence a tithe of that pleasure which Valentine easily
conferred on her, by teaching her to draw; he might almost be said to
have given her a new sense in exchange for the senses that she had
lost. She used to dance about the room with the reckless ecstasy of a
child, in her ungovernable delight at the prospect of a sketching
expedition with Mr. Blyth in the Hampstead fields.
At a very early date of her sojourn with Valentine, it was discovered
that her total deafness did not entirely exclude her from every effect
of sound. She was acutely sensitive to the influence of
percussion--that is to say (if so vague and contradictory an expression
may be allowed), she could, under certain conditions, _feel_ the sounds
that she could not hear. For example, if Mr. Blyth wished to bring her
to his side when they were together in the painting-room, and when she
happened neither to be looking at him nor to be within reach of a touch
he used to rub his foot, or the end of his mahl-stick gently against
the floor.
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