lixir of
happiness which would be poured out so abundantly for Mrs. Willis' pupils
on this day.

Now that the time was drawing so near, those girls who were working for
prizes found themselves fully occupied from morning to night. In
play-hours even, girls would be seen with their heads bent over their
books, and, between the prizes and the acting, no little bees in any hive
could be more constantly employed than were these young girls just now.

No happiness is, after all, to be compared to the happiness of healthful
occupation. Busy people have no time to fret and no time to grumble.
According to our old friend, Dr. Watts, people who are healthily busy
have also no time to be naughty, for the old doctor says that it is for
idle hands that mischief is prepared.

Be that as it may, and there is great truth in it, some naughty sprites,
some bad fairies, were flitting around and about that apparently peaceful
atmosphere. That sunny home, governed by all that was sweet and good, was
not without its serpent.

Of all the prizes which attracted interest and aroused competition, the
prize for English composition was this year the most popular. In the
first place, this was known to be Mrs. Willis' own favorite subject. She
had a great wish that her girls should write intelligibly--she had a
greater wish that, if possible, they should think.

"Never was there so much written and printed," she was often heard to
say; "but can any one show me a book with thoughts in it? Can any one
show me, unless as a rare exception, a book which will live? Oh, yes,
these books which issue from the press in thousands are, many of them,
very smart, a great many of them clever, but they are thrown off too
quickly. All great things, great books among them, must be evolved
slowly."

Then she would tell her pupils what she considered the reason of this.

"In these days," she would say, "all girls are what is called highly
educated. Girls and boys alike must go in for competitive examinations,
must take out diplomas, and must pass certain standards of excellence.
The system is cramming from beginning to end. There is no time for
reflection. In short, my dear girls, you swallow a great deal, but you do
not digest your intellectual food."

Mrs. Willis hailed with pleasure any little dawnings of real thought in
her girls' prize essays. More than once she bestowed the prize upon the
essay which seemed to the girls the most crude and unfinished.