especially; his father was a soldier, he
walks beautifully."

"Does he, Joachim? Let me see you walk like him, my dear."

Joachim stepped boldly enough into the middle of the room, and drew
himself up; but a sudden consciousness of his extreme inferiority to
the soldier's son, both in figure, manner and mode of walking, made
him feel quite sheepish. There was a pause of expectation.

"Now then!" said Joachim's Mother.

"I cannot walk like _him_, Mother," said Joachim.

"Why not?"

"Because he walks so _very well_!"

"Oh,"--said Joachim's Mother.

There was another pause.

"Come, Joachim," continued the Widow, "I am very anxious to admire you
as much as your Aunt does. You are not tired; let us have some more
exhibitions. You gave us a song just now horribly out of tune, and
with the screeching voice of a bagpipe."

"I was singing like Tom Smith," interrupted Joachim.

"Is he your best singer?" enquired the Mother. Another laugh followed.

"Nay, Mother, no one sings so badly."

"Indeed! How does the Singing Master sing, Joachim?"

"Oh, Mother," cried Joachim, "so beautifully, it would make the tears
come into your eyes with pleasure, to listen to him."

"Well, but as I cannot listen to him, let me, at all events, have the
pleasure of hearing my clever son imitate him," was the reply.

Joachim was mute. He had a voice, though not a remarkable one, but he
had shirked the labour of trying to improve it by practice. He made
one effort to sing like the Master, but overpowered by a sense of
incapacity, his voice failed, and he felt disposed to cry.

"Why, Joachim, I thought you were such a clever creature you could
imitate any thing," cried the Mother.

No answer fell from the abashed boy, till a sudden thought revived
him.

"But I _can_ imitate the singing-master, Mother."

"Let me hear you, my dear child."

"Why it isn't exactly what you can hear," observed Joachim
murmuringly; "but when he sings, you have no idea what horrible faces
he makes. Nay, it's true, indeed, he turns up his eyes, shuts them,
distorts his mouth, and swings about on the stool like the pendulum of
a clock!"

And Joachim performed all the grimaces and contortions to perfection,
till his Aunt and Cousins were convulsed with laughter.

"Well done," cried his Mother. "Now you are indeed like the cat in the
German fable, Joachim! who voted himself like the bear, because he
could lick his paws after the same fashion, though he