ss on
her face. And then she went into a hospital, and she was so kind to the
sick that they all loved the funny little old woman. And still the
wrinkles grew fewer, and the form grew straighter, and the face grew
fresher, until all the people in the hospital said, "Our funny little old
woman is really getting younger." And younger and still younger she
became, until the beautiful lady kissed her beautiful Miriam again, and
the music came back into her voice once more. And Tilda Tulip thought in
her dream that Miriam looked like herself, and that the beautiful lady
seemed like her own mother. And then she waked up and found it morning,
for she had dreamed all this long dream in one night.

And when she was about to fly into a passion with her stockings, in
dressing, the thought of the funny little old woman and her face in
beggars' presses kept her from it. When she was dressed she told uncle
Jack all about the dream, and he smiled.

"Suppose you try the plan that the funny little old woman did, and see if
you can't get rid of some of your wrinkles," he said to Tilda.

WIDOW WIGGINS' WONDERFUL CAT.

Widow Wiggins was a wee, wiry, weird woman, with a wonderful cat--a very
wonderful cat, indeed! The neighbors all said it was bewitched. Perhaps
it was; I don't know; but a very wonderful cat it was. It had a strange
way of knowing, when people were talking, whether what they said was
right or wrong. If people said what they ought not to say, wee Widow
Wiggins' wonderful cat would mew. Perhaps the cat had lived so long with
the wee, wiry, weird widow woman, who was one of the best in the world,
that it had gotten her dislike to things that were wrong. But the wee
widow's neighbors were afraid of that cat. When Mrs. Vine, a very vile,
vinegar-tongued, vixenish virago, abused her neighbors to the wee, wiry,
weird, widow woman, the Widow Wiggins' wonderful cat would mew. And so
the vile, vixenish virago wished the cat was dead. And when slender,
slim, slippery Sly Slick, Esq., tried to persuade the widow to swindle
her neighbor, the cat mewed furiously. And so it came that Mr. Slick did
not like the wee widow's wonderful cat. In fact, he said it was a
nuisance. And Tilda Tattle, the tiresome-tongued, town tale-bearer, could
not abide the cat, because it mewed all the time she was tattling.

And so it happened that good Deacon Pettibone, and his wife, who was even
better than the deacon, were abou