——I wish you could once hear my sister's voice,—said the schoolmistress.
If it is like yours, it must be a pleasant one,—said I.
I never thought mine was anything,—said the schoolmistress.
How should you know?—said I.—People never hear their own voices,—any more than they see their own faces. There is not even a looking-glass for the voice. Of course, there is something audible to us when we speak; but that something is not our own voice as it is known to all our acquaintances. I think, if an image spoke to us in our own tones, we should not know them in the least.—How pleasant it would be, if in another state of being we could have shapes like our former selves for playthings,—we standing outside or inside of them, as we liked, and they being to us just what we used to be to others!
——I wonder if there will be nothing like what we call "play," after our earthly toys are broken,—said the schoolmistress.
Hush,—said I,—what will the divinity-student say?
[I thought she was hit, that time;—but the shot must have gone over her, or on one side of her; she did not flinch.]
Oh,—said the schoolmistress,—he must look out for my sister's heresies;
I am afraid he will be too busy with them to take care of mine.
Do you mean to say,—said I,—that it is your sister whom that student——
[The young fellow commonly known as John, who had been sitting on the barrel, smoking, jumped off just then, kicked over the barrel, gave it a push with his foot that set it rolling, and stuck his saucy-looking face in at the window so as to cut my question off in the middle; and the schoolmistress leaving the room a few minutes afterwards, I did not have a chance to finish it.