One slight, sad, slow movement of the head seemed to say, "The death-symbol is still there!" A very odd personage, to be sure! Seems to know what is going on, -- reads books, old and new,--has many recent publications sent him, they tell me, but, what is more curious, keeps up with the everyday affairs of the world, too.

Whether he hears everything that is said with preternatural acuteness, or whether some confidential friend visits him in a quiet way, is more than I can tell.

I can make nothing more of the noises I hear in his room than my old conjectures.

The movements I mention are less frequent, but I often hear the plaintive cry,--I observe that it is rarely laughing of late;--I never have detected one articulate word, but I never heard such tones from anything but a human voice.
There has been, of late, a deference approaching to tenderness, on the part of the boarders generally so far as he is concerned.

This is doubtless owing to the air of suffering which seems to have saddened his look of late.