carage. When she went home the next day Tom said she was
quite a "little heroine." Nan did not know what that meant, but she was
sure it was something pleasant.

And the best of it all was, that after this adventure Nan never felt so
frightened of the dark again. But that she kept to herself.

STORY FIVE, CHAPTER 1.

PENELOPE'S NEEDLEWORK--A SHORT STORY.

One of the greatest trials of Penelope's life when she was ten years old
was music, and the other, needlework; she could not see any possible use
in learning either of them, and none of the arguments put forward by
nurse, governess, or mother, made the least impression on her mind. It
was especially hard, she thought, that she had to go on with music,
because Ralph, her younger brother, had been allowed to leave off.
"Won't you have pity on me, and let me leave off too?" she asked her
mother one day imploringly. But mother, though she was touched by the
pleading face, and though Penelope's music lessons were household
afflictions, thought it better to be firm.

"You see, darling," she said, "that now you have got on so much further
than Ralph it would be a pity to leave off. You have broken the back of
it."

"Ah, no," sighed poor Penelope, "it's broken the back of me."

And then the needlework! Could there be a duller, more unsatisfactory
occupation? Particularly if your stitches _would_ always look crooked
and straggling, and when the thimble hurt your finger, and the needle
got sticky, and the thread broke when you least expected it. It was
quite as bad as music in its way. Penelope would sigh wearily over her
task, and envy the people in the Waverley novels, who, she felt sure,
never sewed seams or had music lessons.

For the Waverley novels were Penelope's favourite books, and she asked
nothing better than to curl herself up in some corner with one of the
volumes, and to be left alone.

Then, once plunged into the adventures of "Ivanhoe," or "Quentin
Durward," or the hero of "The Talisman," her troubles vanished.

She followed her hero in all his varying fortunes, and was present at
his side in battle; she saw him struggling against many foes, fighting
for the poor and weak, meeting treachery with truth, and falsehood with
faithfulness; she heard the clash of his armour, and watched his good
sword flash in the air at the tournament; she trembled for him when he
was sore wounded, and rejoiced with him when, after many a hard-won
fray, he wa