he determined she
must learn. She applied to the Doctor. He was astonished at her entire
ignorance, but he was very glad to help her. Isabella gave herself up to
her reading, as she had done before to her sewing. The Doctor was now
the gainer. All the time he was away, Isabella sat in his study, poring
over her books; when he returned, she had a famous lesson to recite to
him. Then he began to tell her of books that he was interested in. He
made Celia come in, for a history class. It was such a pleasure to him
to find Isabella interested in what he could tell her of history!

"All this really happened," said Isabella to Celia once,--"these people
really lived!"

"Yes, but they died," responded Celia, in an indifferent tone,--"and
ever so long ago, too!"

"But did they die," asked Isabella, "if we can talk about them, and
imagine how they looked? They live for us as much as they did then."

"That I can't understand," said Celia. "My uncle saw Napoleon when he
was in Europe, long ago. But I never saw Napoleon. He is dead and gone
to me, just as much as Alexander the Great."

"Well, who does live, if Alexander the Great, if Napoleon, and Columbus
do not live?" asked Isabella, impatiently.

"Why, papa and mamma live," answered Celia, "and you"----

"And the butcher," interrupted Isabella, "because he brings you meat to
eat; and Mr. Spool, because he keeps the thread store. Thank you for
putting me in, too! Once"----

"Once!" answered Celia, in a dignified tone, "I suppose once you lived
in a grander circle, and it appears to you we have nobody better than
Mr. Spool and the butcher."

Isabella was silent, and thought of her "circle," her former circle.
The circle here was large enough, the circumference not very great, but
there were as many points in it as in a larger one. There were pleasant,
motherly Mrs. Gibbs, and her agreeable daughters,--the Gresham
boys, just in college,--the Misses Tarletan, fresh from a New York
boarding-school,--Mr. Lovell, the young minister,--and the old Misses
Pendleton, that made raspberry-jam,--together with Celia's particular
friends, Anna and Selina Mountfort, who had a great deal of talking with
Celia in private, but not a word to say to anybody in the parlor. All
these, with many others in the background, had been speculating upon the
riddle that Isabella presented,--"Who was she? and where did she come
from?"

Nobody found any satisfactory answer. Neither Celia nor her mother