to read the chapter in _Sandford and
Merton_ that tells of poor soft Tommy's choice of the shorter end of
the pole on which the load was hung, as likely to be the lighter. I
guessed that it was now time for me to expect to hear the birth-cry of
my Creature, or at least to detect some thrill of life. Lifting a corner
of the mufflings, I insinuated a tentative finger.

IT was warm! And before I withdrew my finger from the rough brown coat I
was confident that I felt a throb like a pulse heave ITS sides. It is
not an exaggeration to say that I was faint with excitement as I
replaced the wrappings. I had never heard of Pygmalion and his statue.
It was thirty years thereafter before I read Mary Shelley's
_Frankenstein_. When I did read it I could not fail to recall the
picture of the country-bred child, palpitating with awed delight in the
belief that she had wrested Something from Nothing. Youth alone is
absolutely fearless. The presumption of ignorance is akin to sublimity.

I sat down again to ecstatic dreamings. IT would be all my own when IT
was made--a pet so much better worth the having and holding than any
that had preceded it in my affections, that I thought of them--even of
the ever-lamented Darby and Joan--with compassionate contempt. I
pictured to myself the astonishment of the household, white and colored,
in beholding the miracle; the sensation in the neighborhood and county
when the news of what had come to pass was bruited abroad. From the
outermost border of Powhatan, from Chesterfield, and mayhap from over
the river separating Powhatan from Goochland, people would flock to see
me and wonder. Grown-uppers, who had never heard my name until now,
would tell other strangers what Mary Hobson Burwell, aged seven, had
done. I should be CELEBRATED!

I sat and roasted, shifting my position occasionally that another side
might get "done," and seemed to pore over my book until dinner was
ready.

"You are eating next to nothing, Molly," remarked my mother, casually,
during the meal. "Have you been to see 'Ritta since breakfast?"

"Yes, ma'am," I answered meekly; and she did not observe that I colored
uneasily.

Back to my watch I went when the table was cleared, and the others had
quitted the room. Uncle Ike replenished the fire, and commended my good
sense in "huggin' the chimbley-corner in sech cole weather," before he
left me to solitude, to _Sandford and Merton_, and to "Frank." I had
resolved to name him fo