y, very poor, but she saved and
scrimped, and scrimped and saved, for she meant that this baby girl
should not long and long for the music that never came. _She_ should
have music lessons."

"Was it--me?" whispered Penelope, with tremulous lips.

Hester drew a long breath.

"Yes, dear. I was the little girl long ago, and you are the little girl
of to-day. And when the piano came, Penelope, I found in it all those
songs that the winds and the trees used to sing to me. Now the sun
shines brighter and the birds sing sweeter--and all this beautiful world
is yours--all yours. Oh, Penelope, are n't you glad?"

Penelope raised a tear-wet face and looked into her mother's shining eyes.

"Glad?--oh, mother!" she cried fervently. Then very softly, "Mother--do
you think--could you teach _me_?-- Oh, I want to play just like
that--just like that!"

The Folly of Wisdom

Until his fiftieth year Jason Hartsorn knew nothing whatever about the
position of his liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, spleen, and stomach except
that they must be somewhere inside of him; then he attended the auction
of old Doctor Hemenway's household effects and bid off for twenty-five
cents a dilapidated clothes basket, filled with books and pamphlets.
Jason's education as to his anatomy began almost at once then, for on the
way home he fished out a coverless volume from the basket and became lost
in awed wonder over a pictured human form covered from scalp to the toes
with scarlet, vine-like tracings.

"For the land's sake, Jason!" ejaculated Mrs. Hartsorn, as her husband
came puffing into the kitchen with his burden an hour later. "Now, what
trash have you been buyin'?"

"'Trash'!" panted Jason, carefully setting the basket down. "I guess you
won't call it no 'trash' when you see what 't is! It's books--learnin',
Hitty. I been readin' one of 'em, too. Look a-here," and he pulled up
his shirt sleeve and bared a brawny arm; "that's all full of teeny little
pipes an' cords. Why, if I could only skin it--"

"Jason!" screamed his wife, backing away.

"Pooh! 'T ain't nothin' to fret over," retorted Jason airily. "Besides,
you've got 'em too--ev'ry one has; see!" He finished by snatching up the
book and spreading before her horrified eyes the pictured figure with its
scarlet, vine-like tracings.

"Oh-h!" shivered the woman, and fled from the room.

Shivers and shudders became almost second nature to Mehitable Hartsorn
during the days