about, somehow, though it is doubtful if many of their comments were of
sufficient importance or novelty to merit record. Then, also, he often
read aloud to her from lovely books, for the colonel read admirably and
did not scruple to give emotional passages their value. _Trilby_,
published the preceding spring in book form, was one of these books, for
all this was at a very remote period; and the _Rubaiyat_ was another,
for that poem was as yet unhackneyed and hardly wellknown enough to be
parodied in those happy days.

Once he read to her that wonderful sad tale of Hans Christian Andersen's
which treats of the china chimney-sweep and the shepherdess, who eloped
from their bedizened tiny parlor-table, and were frightened by the
vastness of the world outside, and crept ignominiously back to their fit
home. "And so," the colonel ended, "the little china people remained
together, and were thankful for the rivet in grandfather's neck, and
continued to love each other until they were broken to pieces."

"It was really a very lucky thing," Patricia estimated, "that the
grandfather had a rivet in his neck and couldn't nod to the
billy-goat-legged person to take the shepherdess away into his cupboard.
I don't doubt the little china people were glad of it. But after
climbing so far--and seeing the stars,--I think they ought to have had
more to be glad for." Her voice was quaintly wistful.

"I will let you into a secret--er--Patricia. That rivet was made out of
the strongest material in the whole universe. And the old grandfather
was glad, at bottom, he had it in his neck so that he couldn't nod and
separate the shepherdess from the chimney-sweep."

"Yes,--I guess he had been rather a rip among the bric-a-brac in his day
and sympathized with them?"

"No, it wasn't just that. You see these little china people had forsaken
their orderly comfortable world on the parlor table to climb very high.
It was a brave thing to do, even though they faltered and came back
after a while. It is what we all want to do, Patricia--to climb toward
the stars,--even those of us who are too lazy or too cowardly to attempt
it. And when others try it, we are envious and a little uncomfortable,
and we probably scoff; but we can't help admiring, and there is a rivet
in the neck of all of us which prevents us from interfering. Oh, yes,
we little china people have a variety of rivets, thank God, to prevent
too frequent nodding and too cowardly a compro