y truthful.
"Let me hear them." He pauses here and regards her with a searching eye.
"They"--with careful forethought--"they aren't lessons, are they?"

"No; they are not lessons," says his aunt, laughing. "But you won't like
them for all that. If you are athirst for literature, get me one of your
own books, and I will read 'Jack the Giant Killer' to you."

"I'm sick of him," says Tommy, most ungratefully. That tremendous hero
having filled up many an idle hour of his during his short lifetime.
"No," nestling closer to her. "Go on with your poetry one!"

"You would hate it. It is worse than 'Jack,'" says she.

"Let me hear it," says Tommy, persistently.

"Well," says Miss Kavanagh, with a sigh, "if you will have it, at least,
don't interrupt." She has tried very hard to get rid of him, but, having
failed in so signal a fashion, she gives herself up with an admirable
resignation to the inevitable.

"What would I do that for?" asks Tommy, rather indignantly.

"I don't know, I'm sure. But I thought I'd warn you," says she, wisely
precautious. "Now, sit down there," pointing to the seat beside her;
"and when you feel you have had enough of it, say so at once."

"That would be interrupting," says Tommy, the Conscientious.

"Well, I give you leave to interrupt so far," says Joyce, glad to leave
him a loop-hole that may insure his departure before Felix comes. "But
no further--mind that."

"Oh, I'm minding!" says Tommy, impatiently. "Go on. Why don't you
begin?"

Miss Kavanagh, taking up her book once more, opens it at random. All its
contents are sweetmeats of the prettiest, so she is not driven to a
choice. She commences to read in a firm, soft voice:--

"The wind and the beam loved the rose,
And the roses loved one:
For who recks the----"

"What's that?" says Tommy.

"What's what?"

"You aren't reading it right, are you?"

"Certainly I am. Why?"

"I don't believe a beam of wood could love anything," says Tommy; "it's
too heavy."

"It doesn't mean a beam of wood."

"Doesn't it?" staring up into her face. "What's it mean, then--'The beam
that is in thine own eye?'"

He is now examining her own eye with great interest. As usual, Tommy is
strong in Bible lore.

"I have no beam in my eye, I hope," says Joyce, laughing; "and, at all
events, it doesn't mean that either. The poet who wrote this meant a
sunbeam."

"Well, why couldn't he say so?" says Tommy, gruffly.

"I really think yo