'I hope,' says he, 'the poor child is too young to suffer much mental misery under her dreadful misfortune.

Keep her amused, and keep her talking, if you possibly can--though I doubt very much whether, in a little time, you won't fail completely in getting her to speak at all.' "'Don't say that, sir,' says I; 'don't say she'll be dumb as well as deaf; it's enough to break one's heart only to think of it.' 'But I _must_ say so,' says he; 'for I'm afraid it's the truth.' And then he asks me whether I hadn't noticed already that she was unwilling to speak; and that, when she did speak, her voice wasn't the same voice it used to be.

I said 'Yes,' to that; and asked him whether the fall had had anything to do with it.

He said, taking me up very short, it had everything to do with it, because the fall had made her, what they call, stone deaf, which prevented her from hearing the sound of her own voice.
So it was changed, he told me, because she had no ear now to guide herself by in speaking, and couldn't know in the least whether the few words she said were spoken soft or loud, or deep or clear.

'So far as the poor child herself is concerned,' says he, 'she might as well be without a voice at all; for she has nothing but her memory left to tell her that she has one.' "I burst out a-crying as he said this; for somehow I'd never thought of anything so dreadful before.