, and more than anything else, is the power of the
human heart.' There, I have quoted it correctly now. Maybe the day will
come. Maybe we will live to be old, and you will write things that
everybody will read, and I will take care of father and mother while you
go out into the world."

"Wherever I may go, and whatever I may become or fail to be, my heart
will always be true to you, Jenny."

"And I will do all I can for father and mother; I will be your heart to
them, so that you may give your time to your pen. Every one in a family
should seek to do for the family what others lack or are not able to do.
You can write; I can not, but, Ben, I can love."

She walked about the wild rose bushes, where the red-winged blackbirds
were singing.

"O Ben," she continued, "I am so glad that you wrote that piece, and
that father liked it so well! I would not have been more glad had you
received a present from a king. Maybe you will receive a present from a
king some day, if you write as well as that."

"You will keep the secret, Jenny?"

"Yes, Ben, I will look for the paper to-morrow. How glad Uncle Ben would
be if he knew it. Why, Ben, that name, Silence Dogood, is a piece in
itself. It is a picture of your heart. You are just like Uncle Ben,
Silence Dogood."

The name of Silence Dogood became famous in Boston town. Jenny obtained
Ben's permission to tell Uncle Benjamin the great secret, and Uncle
Benjamin's heart was so delighted that he went to his room and told the
secret "to the Lord."

The three hearts were now very, very happy for a time. Jenny was growing
up a beautiful girl, and her thoughts were much given to her
hard-working parents and to laughed-at, laughing little Ben.

When Uncle Benjamin had heard of Ben's failure as a poet and success as
Silence Dogood, he took him down to Long Wharf again.

"I am an old man," he said. "But here I have a lesson for you. If you
are conscious that you have any gift, even in small degree, never let
the world laugh it away. See 'that no man take thy crown,' the Scripture
says. Every one who has contributed anything to the progress of the
world has been laughed at. Stick a pin in thee, Ben.

"Now, Ben, you may not have the poet's imagination or art, but if you
have the poetical mind do not be laughed out of an attempt to express
it. You may not become a poet; I do not think that you ever will.
Perhaps you will write proverbs, and proverbs are a kind of poems. I am
going to