hey say."

"Who says so?"

"Father says so, and mother."

"What do you think they want you to go to school for?"

"I suppose that I may become like other people."

Mr. Eberstein burst out into a laugh. His wife's eyes went over to him
adjuringly.

"Are you not like other people now, Dolly?"

The child's sweet, thoughtful brown eyes were lifted to hers frankly,
as she answered, "I don't know, ma'am."

"Then why do you say that? or why do they say it?"

"I don't know," said Dolly again. "I think they think so."

"I daresay they do," said Mrs. Eberstein; "but if you were mine, I
would rather have you unlike other people."

"Why, Aunt Harry?"

"Yes," said Mr. Eberstein; "now you'll have to go on and tell." And
Dolly's eyes indeed looked expectant.

"I think I like you best just as you are."

Dolly's face curled all up into a smile at this; brow and eyes and
cheeks and lips all spoke her sense of amusement; and stooping forward
a little at the same time, she laid a loving kiss upon her aunt's
mouth, who was unspeakably delighted with this expression of
confidence. But then she repeated gravely--

"I think they want me changed."

"And pray, what are you going to do, with that purpose in view?"

"I don't know. I am going to study, and learn things; a great many
things."

"I don't believe you are particularly ignorant for eleven years old."

"Oh, I do not know anything!"

"Can you write a nice hand?"

Dolly's face wrinkled up again with a sense of the comical. She gave an
unhesitating affirmative answer.

"And you have read Shakespeare. What else, Dolly?"

"Plutarch."

"'Plutarch's Lives'?" said Mrs. Eberstein, while her husband again
laughed out aloud. "Hush, Edward. Is it 'Plutarch's Lives,' my dear,
that you mean? Caesar, and Alexander, and Pompey?"

Dolly nodded. "And all the rest of them. I like them very much."

"But what is your favourite book?"

"That!" said Dolly.

"I have got a whole little bookcase upstairs full of the books I used
to read when I was a little girl. We will look into it to-morrow, and
see what we can find. 'Plutarch's Lives' is not there."

"Oh, I do not want that," said Dolly, her eyes brightening. "I have
read it so much, I know it all."

"Come here," said Mr. Eberstein; "your aunt has had you long enough;
come here, Dolly, and talk to me. Tell me which of those old fellows
you think was the best fellow?"

"Of 'Plutarch's Lives'?" said Dolly, accepting a pos