very one! I will! I can
because I have a big heart. Did you know that the more you put into a
heart the more it will hold? It's the hearts that haven't anyone in
them that are so little and hard. I think hearts must be like
balloons. You can blow and blow and blow into balloons and there's
always room for some more breath."

"Unless they break. Balloons break, Mary Rose, and so do hearts."

Mary Rose looked incredulous. "Mine never did. And anyway I'd rather
have my heart break from being too full than get hard because it didn't
have anyone in it. I'd like to have the very biggest heart in the
whole world!" she cried ambitiously.

"Big enough to hold Mr. Wells? Did you know he was ill, Mary Rose?
His Jap came up last night and asked Miss Carter not to play on the
piano because Mr. Wells wasn't well and didn't wish to be disturbed."
Miss Thorley's lip curled disdainfully.

"Mr. Wells sick?" Mary Rose was much concerned. "What's the matter?"

Miss Thorley shook her head.

"Haven't you been down to ask?" Mary Rose always had been sent to ask
in Mifflin.

"Gracious, no! I shouldn't dare. He'd probably bite my head off."

"He couldn't bite your head off if he was sick. It doesn't seem real
neighborly, Miss Thorley. And you are neighbors. You live right over
his head. I expect he has dyspepsia and that's the reason he looked
so--" she hesitated over a word, "unfriendly. Why when Mr. Lewis, he's
the postmaster in Mifflin, had dyspepsia Mrs. Lewis didn't dare say her
soul was her own. Mr. Lewis couldn't be cross to people when they came
for their mail so he saved it all for Mrs. Lewis. That doesn't seem
quite fair, does it, for people to be pleasant to outsiders and save
their bad temper for their homes?"

"It isn't fair but I rather think it's human."

Mary Rose shook her head. "Sometimes I think that human and
disagreeable mean the same thing because people all say the bad things
we do are human. Where did we learn them, Miss Thorley? The Lord made
us all good because it wouldn't have paid him to make us bad. Where do
you suppose Mr. Lewis learned to snap and Mr. Wells to scold and you to
frown?"

Miss Thorley certainly did have a frown. It ran right across her
pretty forehead when she said: "Bless me! child, how do I know? That's
enough for one day." She put the drawing board on the table and
stretched herself luxuriously. "Try and be on time tomorrow, Mary
Rose, and I think we ca