ep in and look at the baby who
is sitting in his chair, a little stranger, just come from Ireland to
San Francisco."

Mrs. Green peeped in and saw the sun shining on Rosaleen's primrose
head. She was stringing beads, while Bobby, Pat and Aaron knelt beside
her, palpitating for a chance to serve.

"She's real cute!" whispered Mrs. Green. "Does Bobby act very often like
he's doin' now?"

"He's one of the greatest comforts of my life!" I said truly.

"I wish I could say the same!" she retorted. "Well, I came round
intendin' to give him a good settlin' but he'd had two already this
week and I guess I'll let it go! We ain't so poverty-struck as some o'
the folks in this neighborhood and I guess we can make out to spare a
chair, it's little enough to pay for gettin' rid of Bobby."

Two years that miracle of beauty and sweetness, Rosaleen Clancy stayed
with us, just as potent an influence as the birds or the flowers, the
stories I told, or the music I coaxed from the little upright piano. Her
face was not her only fortune for she had a heart of gold. Ireland did
indeed have a grievance when Rosaleen left it for America!

This is just a corner of my portrait gallery, which has dozens of other
types hanging on the walls clamoring to be described. Some were lovely
and some interestingly ugly; some were like lilies growing out of the
mud, others had not been quite as able to energize themselves out of
their environment and bore the sad traces of it ever with them;--still,
they were all absorbingly interesting beyond my power to paint. Month
after month they sat together, working, playing, helping, growing--in a
word learning how to live, and there in the midst of the group was I,
learning my life lesson with them.

The study and the practice of the kindergarten theory of education and
of life gave me, while I was still very young, a certain ideal by which
to live and work, and it has never faded.--Never, whether richer or
poorer, whether better or worse, in sickness or in health, in prosperity
or adversity, never wholly to lose my glimpse of that "celestial light"
that childhood-apparalled "Meadow, grove and stream, the earth and every
common sight:" and to hold that attitude of mind and heart which gives
to life even when it is difficult something of "the glory and the
freshness of a dream!"

[Illustration]

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By Kate Douglas Wiggin

REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK