ssons are to be learned as
fast as the old ones are understood. Of what use to set Polly tasks to
develop her bravery, when she was already brave?

Courage was one of the little jewels set in her fairy crown when she
was born, but there was a round, empty space beside it, where Patience
should have been. Further along was Daring, making a brilliant show,
but again there was a tiny vacancy waiting for Prudence.

The crown made a fine appearance, on the whole, because the large
jewels were mostly in place, and the light of these blinded you to the
lack of the others; but to the eye of the keen observer there was a
want of symmetry and completeness.

Polly knew the unfinished state of her fairy crown as well as anybody
else. She could not plead ignorance as an excuse; but though she would
have gone on polishing the great gems with a fiery zeal, she added the
little jewels very slowly, and that only on compulsion.

There had been seven or eight weeks of partial unconsciousness, when
the sorrow and the loneliness of life stole into her waking dreams only
vaguely and at intervals; when she was unhappy, and could not remember
why; and slept, to wake and wonder and sleep again.

Then there were days and weeks when the labor of living was all that
the jaded body could accomplish; when memory was weak; when life began
at the pillow, and ended at the foot of the bed, and the universe was
bounded by the chamber windows.

But when her strength came back, and she stood in the middle of the
floor, clothed and in her right mind, well enough to remember,--oh!
then indeed the deep waters of bitterness rolled over poor Polly's head
and into her heart, and she sank beneath them without a wish or a
struggle to rise.

"If it had been anything else!" she sobbed. "Why did God take away my
most precious, my only one to live for, when I was trying to take care
of her, trying to be good, trying to give back the strength that had
been poured out on me,--miserable, worthless me! Surely, if a girl was
willing to do without a father and sisters and brothers, without good
times and riches, willing to work like a galley slave, willing to
'scrimp' and plan and save for ever and ever; surely 'they' might be
willing that she should keep her mother!"

Poor Polly! Providence at this time seemed nothing more than a
collection of demons which she classified under the word "they," and
which she felt certain were scourging her pitilessly and need