Ah, Dr. G., you have indeed roused me from apathy!  I am in torture, and Heaven only knows whether on this side of the grave I shall ever find peace again!

Poor Kate reads my heart, and weeps daily in secret.  Brave Kate, who shed so few tears over her own grief!

VII.

C——­ Springs.  August.

I so continually speak of my illness, Mary, that I fear you have good right to think me that worst kind of bore, a hypochondriac.  But something is now going on with me that raises all my hopes and fears.  I dare not speak of it to Kate, lest she should be too sanguine, and be doomed to suffer again the crush of all her hopes.

I really feel that I could not survive disappointment, should I ever entertain positive hope of cure.  Neither can I endure this suspense without asking some one’s opinion.  There is no medical man here in whom I have confidence, and so I go to you, as a child does to its mother in its troubles, not knowing what she can do for it, but relying upon her to do something.

I will explain what it is that excites me to such an agony of dread and expectation.  When the little girl asked me to let her see my marble limbs, supposing me the Prince of the Black Isles, she sprang forward in the eagerness of childish curiosity, and touched my knee with her hand.  I was so amazed at this glimpse into her mind, that for some time I only tingled with astonishment.  But while I was telling Kate about it, it all came back to me again,—­her stunning words, her eager spring, her prompt grasp of my knee,—­and I remembered that I had involuntarily started away from her childish hand, that is, moved my motionless limb!

I tried to do it again, but it was impossible.  Still I could not help thinking that I had done it once, under the influence of that electrical shock.

Then I have another source of hope.  I have never suffered any pain in my limbs, and they might have been really marble, for all the feeling I have had in them.  Now I begin to be sensible of a wearisome numbness and aching, which would be hard to bear, if it were not that it gives me the expectation of returning animation.  Do you think I may expect it, and that I am not quite deluding myself?

August 14.

So I wrote two days ago, Mary, and I was right!  That was returning sensation and motion.  I can now move my feet.  I cannot yet stand, or walk, or help myself, any more than before; but I can, by a voluntary effort, move.

Rejoice with me!  I am a happy fellow this day!  Dazzling daylight is peeping through this sma’ hole!  Remember what I wrote of a certain lady;—­and Ben has hunted me up a law-book, which I am devouring.  My profession, and other blessings, again almost within grasp!  This is wildness, hope run riot, I know; but let me indulge to-day, for it is this day which has set me free.  I never voluntarily stirred before since the accident,—­I mean my lower limbs, of course.  After writing a sentence, I look down at my feet, moving them this way and that, to make sure that I am not stricken again.