t utterly unlike her old buoyant step.

Edgar often came in the evenings, as did Tom and Blanche Mills, and
Milly Foster; but though Polly was cheerful and composed, she seldom
broke into her old flights of nonsense.

On other nights, when they were alone, she prepared for her hours of
story-telling, and in this she was wonderfully helped by Mr. Bird's
suggestions and advice; for he was a student of literature in many
languages, and delighted in bringing his treasures before so teachable
a pupil.

"She has a sort of genius that astonishes me," said he one morning, as
he chatted with Mrs. Bird over the breakfast-table.

Polly had excused herself, and stood at the farther library window,
gazing up the street vaguely and absently, as if she saw something
beyond the hills and the bay. Mrs. Bird's heart sank a little as she
looked at the slender figure in the black dress. There were no dimples
about the sad mouth, and was it the dress, or was she not very white
these latter days?--so white that her hair encircled her face with
absolute glory, and startled one with its color.

"It is a curious kind of gift," continued Mr. Bird, glancing at his
morning' papers. "She takes a long tale of Hans Andersen's, for
instance, and after an hour or two, when she has his idea fully in
mind, she shows me how she proposes to tell it to the younger children
at the Orphan Asylum. She clasps her hands over her knees, bends
forward toward the firelight, and tells the story with such simplicity
and earnestness that I am always glad she is looking the other way and
cannot see the tears in my eyes. I cried like a school-girl last night
over 'The Ugly Duckling.' She has natural dramatic instinct, a great
deal of facial expression, power of imitation, and an almost unerring
taste in the choice of words, which is unusual in a girl so young and
one who has been so imperfectly trained. I give her an old legend or
some fragment of folk-lore, and straight-way she dishes it up for me as
if it had been bone of her bone and marrow of her marrow; she knows
just what to leave out and what to put in, somehow. You had one of
your happy inspirations about that girl, Margaret,--she is a born
story-teller. She ought to wander about the country with a lute under
her arm. Is the Olivers' house insured?"

"Good gracious, Jack! you have a kangaroo sort of mind! How did you
leap to that subject? I'm sure I don't know, but what difference does
it make