her kind at noonday across the ocean.  Days, and nights too—­for day and night were alike to her wakeful sympathies—­and weeks she wrought on with her needle.  And then the embroidery of those fingers was sold to the merchants.  Would it had been sold to England’s Queen, to be worn by the young princesses on days of state!  It was sold; and its purchase price was a barrel of flour, instead of a country’s harvest, which it was well worth.  And that barrel of flour was stowed away without other private mark than that the recording Angel put upon it, among the thousands that freighted the Jamestown on her recent mission of brotherly love to Ireland. Laura Bridgman and her barrel of flour should teach the world a lesson worth the woes of one year’s famine.”  Laura favoured us with her autograph on a slip of paper, which we shall always carefully preserve as a memorial of a visit to one of the greatest wonders of the age.

In another room we were introduced to Oliver Caswell.  He is about the same age as Laura, and similarly afflicted, but has been in the institution only six years.  His teacher told him, in the same finger-language which was used with Laura, that we came from British Guiana, and desired him to find out the place on the large globe before him.  This globe was made for the use of the blind, having upon it the countries and their names in relievo.  Oliver turned it round, and felt with his fingers until they soon rested on the required spot, when he seemed greatly delighted.  His attainments are not so remarkable as those of Laura, for he has not been so long under tuition; but his progress is highly encouraging.

At 4 P.M. we left Boston by railway for Albany,—­fare 5 dollars each.  We rested, however, at Springfield for the night, and that in the most comfortable hotel we had met with in the States.  The next day we moved on to Pittsfield, where we arrived at half-past 11.  Finding that we might get off from that train, and go by another in three or four hours’ time, we availed ourselves of the opportunity of calling upon the Rev. Dr. Todd, the author of “Lectures to Children,” “The Student’s Guide,” &c.  Instead of the prim, neat, little man we had always imagined him to be, we found him tall, coarse, slovenly, and unshaven; a man of 46 years of age; hair of an iron-grey, rough and uncombed; features large; cheek-bones prominent; and the straps of his trowsers unbuttoned, and flapping about his slippers.  But, under this unpromising exterior, we discerned a soul of great intelligence, frankness, and brotherly kindness.  Mrs. Todd has been a woman of great beauty, and, though she has brought up a large family of children, is still fresh and comely.  Their eldest daughter is 19 years of age; and John, to whom the “Lectures to Children” were dedicated, is now 14 years of age.  The Doctor’s insane mother, for whose sake he was first led to employ his pen, has been dead for some years.  His desire