The Lost Heir

by G. A. Henty

"Hilda and I had a laugh about it," Netta said; "and she said, too, that it was not fair your being kept in the dark as to our accomplishment."

"'Our accomplishment!'" he repeated in surprise. "Do you mean to say that Miss Covington is deaf also? But no, that is impossible; for I called to her yesterday, when her back was turned, and the General wanted her, and she answered immediately."

"My tongue has run too fast," the girl said, "but I don't suppose she would mind your knowing what she never speaks of herself. She was, as you know, living with us in Hanover for more than four years. She temporarily lost her hearing after an attack of scarlet fever, and the doctors who were consulted here feared that it might be permanent. Her father and mother, hearing of Dr. Hartwig as having the reputation of being the first aurist in Europe, took her out to him. He held out hopes that she could be cured, and recommended that she should be placed in Professor Menzel's institution as soon as she could understand German, so that, in case a cure was not effected, she might be able to hear with her eyes. By great good fortune he recommended that she should live with my aunt, partly because she spoke English, and partly because, as I was already able to talk, I could act as her companion and instructor both in the system and in German.

"In three years she could get on as well as I could, but the need for it happily passed away, as her hearing was gradually restored. Still, she continued to live with us while her education went on at the best school in the town, but of course she always talked with me as I talked with her, and so she kept up the accomplishment and has done so ever since. But her mother advised her very strongly to keep the knowledge of her ability to read people's words from their lips a profound secret, as it might tend to her disadvantage; for people might be afraid of a girl possessed of the faculty of overhearing their conversation at a distance."

"That explains what rather puzzled me the other day," the doctor said. "When I came out into the garden you were sitting together and were laughing and talking. You did not notice me, and it struck me as strange that, while I heard the laughing, I did not hear the sound of your voices until I was within a few paces of you. When Miss Covington noticed me I at once heard your voices."

"Yes, you gave us both quite a start, and Hilda said we must either give up talking silently or let you into our secret; so I don't think that she will be vexed when I tell her that I have let it out."

"I am glad to have the matter explained," he said, "for really I asked myself whether I must not have been temporarily deaf, and should have thought it was so had I not heard the laughing as distinctly as usual. I came to the conclusion that you must, for some reason or other, have dropped your voices to a whisper, and that one or the other was telling some important secret that you did not wish even the winds to hear."

"I think that this is the only secret that we have," Netta laughed.

"Seriously, this is most interesting to me as a doctor, and it is a thousand pities that a system that acts so admirably should not be introduced into this country. You should set up a similar institution here, Miss Purcell."

"I have been thinking of doing so some day. Hilda is always urging me to it, but I feel that I am too young yet to take the head of an establishment, but in another four or five years' time I shall think seriously about it."