"How she reads!" my father said, enviously. "I was just like that when I was a boy."

"The child will have no eyes," my grandmother complained.

"She must know them by heart," my mother added.

I did know them pretty thoroughly, but when I tired of old friends I had only to climb up a shelf higher to find new ones. "Japheth in Search of a Father," "The Mill on the Floss," and "Les Miserables," stood just above my head, and there were stories of children in all of these,—the most entrancing stories that opened a window into a glorious golden world of ideality and romance. It was such a wide world! People did things there. They lived and loved, and when they died the event stamped itself on my mind with a pathos that made me cry from sheer pity.

"I wish Rhoda wouldn't read so many books," my mother said. "She excites herself over them. She is so different from other children of her age!"

She said it half complainingly and half exultingly. Somehow I knew that my mother liked me to read, and that she liked me to be a little different from other children. Sometimes she bragged about it in a mild way to chance callers.

"Rhoda reads the oddest things," I heard her tell two ladies. "When I was a little girl I liked to read 'The Wide, Wide World,' but she likes novels and histories."

The older visitor glanced at me up in my corner. It was "Les Miserables" that day, I remember, and their talk played on the surface of my mind while my heart was busy with Cosette.

"Does she go to school?" she asked.

"No," my mother faltered.

The ladies looked at each other.

"What! At her age! Why, who teaches her?" they demanded, in a shocked chorus.

"I do myself—sometimes," my mother answered, still falteringly.

"Take my advice," the visitor with the black eyes said, decisively, "and send that child to school. Why it's a shame! It isn't fair to the child."

"When she grows up she will regret it," the one with the tight mouth added.

"She isn't strong," my mother explained. "We have kept her at home on that account; but I suppose, yes, I suppose, that she ought to go to school."

She looked at me a moment in a worried fashion, and then brightened, a trifle of her old pride returning.

"She has the greatest stock of general information," she confided, whisperingly. "She astonishes me sometimes. She does, indeed."

The two ladies shook their heads.

"I don't approve of children knowing too much," the one with the black eyes cried.

"And novels!" the other breathed, evidently appalled.

After they were gone my mother took the book out of my hand, and read a page or two of it in a frightened way. She smoothed my hair, and looked at me anxiously.

"Why do you like this book, Rhoda?" she asked.

"Because it's about a little girl, mother," I answered.

I crept a little closer to her.

"She hadn't any mother," I explained, eagerly. "And a man gave her a beautiful doll, and one night, just think, he put a gold coin in her shoe! She was so surprised! Oh, mother, how I wish I could have been there! I do! I do!"

"Is that all, Rhoda?"

I nodded.

"I have always been a good mother to you, haven't I, Rhoda?"

I rubbed my head against her arm, and kissed her hand.

"At least I've tried to be!" my mother cried. "And now I am going to do something that perhaps you won't like; but you may understand some day, dear. I am going to put this book back into the bookcase, and I am going to lock the door. It is not to be opened until I give you leave."

"It isn't my fault, is it, mother?" I asked, perplexed.

"No, it is not your fault. It's only that I want to keep my little girl just the same in heart and mind as she has always been."

She put the book back on the shelf, and she locked the door; but she did not take away the brass key. She knew and I knew that I would never touch it.

But, oh, how I longed for my dear books! I used to creep to the door and look in at them, and it seemed to me that they appeared lonesome. I finished out the story of Cosette to suit myself, and I made stories likewise for the books which I did not know. There was one remarkable thing about my stories, and that was that nobody ever died; but they all lived happy forever and ever. Even when my mother read the Bible to me on Sunday nights after I was in bed I used to sit up anxiously, and pray her to end the stories in my way.

"Oh, don't let the lions eat poor Daniel!" I would cry. "Oh, mother, mother, don't let them eat him up!"

"Why it happened centuries ago, dear," my mother answered, half laughing.

"But I can see it," I protested. "I can see it right now!"

It was so hard to see things going wrong, and not to be able to help!

It was about this time that my mother and I did a great many lessons together, and she would offer me odd bits of useful information at unexpected moments.

"Rhoda is not very well grounded," she told my father, "but I do think, Robert, that she knows a great deal for a child of ten."

She was darning stockings as she spoke, and she turned over a very ragged one of Dick's with a little sigh.

"I would like her to go to school. Not to the public school, but to a young ladies' seminary as I did. Don't you think, Robert, if I were to do without a new winter coat, and we made the old carpet on the stairs last a little longer, that we might send Rhoda to Mrs. Garfield's?"

Her face was brightening as she thought it out.

"And there's the money in her bank," she cried, "her gold pieces that dad has given her on her birthdays and on Christmas. I don't suppose, Robert, you'd want dad to pay for it all? He would, willingly."

"No," my father answered.

My mother's face fell, and then lit up again.

"You are a ridiculously proud boy," she declared, fondly. "Well, at any rate, we can save my coat and the carpet."

I wanted to go to school very badly. Every day at half past ten there was a procession past our house of thirty little girls walking two and two. They all looked happy and important, and I thought how wonderful it might be if I should join their ranks.

Norah, who was always sympathetic, read my fortune in a teacup out in the kitchen that night to see what might be going to happen.

"There's a change coming to you," she said, mysteriously. "There's a fair woman, a widdy by the looks of her, and water to cross, and much money. Sure you'll be gitting so grand that you'll be forgitting your poor old Norah."

I put my arms around her to reassure her.

"I'll never forget you, Norah," I promised.

"Won't you then?" she cried, much pleased.

"No. And, Norah, listen! All that I learn I shall teach you myself!"

"Sure there's a great day coming for both of us," Norah agreed.

I shall never forget that day, the start in the early sunshine, the stiff ruffled apron that I wore, and my mother leading me along the street by the hand. She was just as much excited as I was, and when we came to the door of a large white house, with a brass plate saying, "Mrs. Garfield's Select School for Girls and Young Ladies," she stopped a moment before she rang the bell to rearrange my hair, and give me a private hug.

"Don't forget your seven times!" she whispered, warningly.

I was too far gone for reply, but I nodded, blindly, at her through a mist of tears, unexpected tears, for somehow or other I suddenly seemed to be leaving my old life behind me, and to be going into a strange country.

It was very quiet in the white house. There were a great many rooms, and a subdued hum of recitation. A clock in the hall ticked loudly. My mother and I sat on two lonely chairs in the reception room and waited. I remember that there was a large piece of white coral on the floor in front of the pierglass. It had exactly thirty-seven points. And there was a motto neatly framed on the wall. "The Good Child Makes the Careful Mother." By and by there was a rustle of silk in the doorway, and Mrs. Garfield was shaking hands with us. She was a fair, pleasant-looking lady. She shook hands with my mother first, and then with me. She gazed at me, very closely and attentively, much as a doctor might gaze, but she had kind eyes and once in awhile her dignity would break into a smile.

"I want to enter my little girl," my mother said, falteringly. "She—she doesn't know a great deal."

"Then there's all the more to learn," Mrs. Garfield encouraged us, brightly.

It seemed to me that she liked to know that I didn't know anything. It seemed to me that she liked to think that I was to be built up after her own plan.

She was busy in a moment asking my age, and getting my school books together. There was a brief farewell with my mother in the hall, during which I clung to her, wildly, then the door had shut and I was alone in the world. It was a dreadful feeling to be alone! And it was still more dreadful when I had followed Mrs. Garfield into a large room filled with pupils seated at their desks, and had been introduced to Miss Lucy, the teacher in charge.

"A little new friend of ours, Miss Lucy," Mrs. Garfield said, in the hush that followed our arrival.

Then she turned and left me.

An elderly lady shook my hand in welcome. She had a soft hand, and a worried look as if something had been going wrong, and there was a little curly-haired girl standing in a far corner, with her face hidden against the wall, who was sobbing bitterly. Somebody had been drawing a picture on the blackboard. It showed a stout man with bow-legs, and an ugly face, and underneath was written "Miss Lucy's Beau."

"You can come out of the corner, Miss Armitage," Miss Lucy said, in an icy tone.

She pointed an accusing finger at the blackboard.

"As for that dreadful—that distinctly unladylike—performance of yours on the blackboard I shall allow it to remain until the noon recess."

The little girls all looked at one another.

"Shan't I rub it right off, Miss Lucy?" a small person in a long apron demanded, eagerly.

"Oh, teacher, teacher, let me rub it off!" another echoed.

She had bright red hair and a plaid dress.

"No, Cebelia, no, Janet," Miss Lucy replied, more in sorrow than in anger. "We will look at this drawing together. We will consider its disloyalty, its bad perspective, one foot is larger than the other notwithstanding all I have taught her! its unchristian spirit!"

She paused for a moment, and seemed to discover me.

"Miss Harcourt, you may take the seat next to Miss Armitage," she added, in haste. "Young ladies, we will go on with the geography lesson."

I followed the little curly-headed girl to a desk, and sat down, and looked at her. And she looked back at me with drowned eyes. She was rather pretty. Suddenly, somehow, I felt sorry for her, bad as she evidently was. I slipped my hand into hers.

"Don't cry!" I whispered, in compassion. "You dear! Don't cry!"

She pushed up the cover of the desk, and kissed me in its shadow.

"I like you," she whispered, ardently.

"And I like you," I whispered back.

"Let's be friends," she suggested.

We kissed again, solemnly, in agreement.

Up in front the geography class was bounding Asia very eagerly and rapidly. They had all the air of people who had recently escaped from some great peril. We did not pay them much attention for we were too much occupied with each other. Oh, the glory of having a friend, the secrets that we confided that morning behind the desk cover, the horse-hair rings which we exchanged in token of undying affection, the dear human delight of finding some one who is your own age, and who loves you!

School lost its terrors for me in a very short while. With Grace Armitage beside me I was willing to dare all things, and when half past ten came I went quite happily hand-in-hand with her in the little procession down the sunny street. It was so odd to look at my home from the outside, to see Norah hanging out the wash, the twins playing in the garden, and even grandmother sewing composedly at a window, just as if it were an ordinary day, and I had not gone to school for the first time. But my mother remembered, and when we passed the door she came running out and waved to me.

After that life resolved itself into a series of school days. Every morning I went gayly off with my books, feeling a new sense of importance, and every afternoon I came running home, with a budget of news to tell my mother. There were many things to puzzle me in the new world. For instance, I could never understand, why, when the spelling lesson was particularly hard, Janet McLarin would always show a great anxiety to hear about Miss Lucy's childhood.

"Oh, Miss Lucy," she would cry, clasping her hands together, "tell us about when you were a little girl!"

Then there would come a perfect chorus from the whole class.

"Oh, do, Miss Lucy! Do tell us about when you were a little girl!"

"Tell us about the little cloak your mother made out of a shawl," Cebelia would say, invitingly.

Even Grace would add her quota.

"Tell about your mother's party dress, and how she first met your father."

"Yes, yes," the others would clamor. "And tell us about her pink coral beads, and how they were lost, and he found them!"

Then Miss Lucy would close the green spelling book, with a gratified smile, and gather us about her in a little hushed circle, and tell us the tales of a bygone age. I liked Miss Lucy. I liked to sit up close to her and to Grace, and hear about the party dress, and the pink coral beads, and when it all ended happily, as stories should, I would give a great sigh of satisfaction.

"Dear me," Miss Lucy would say, all aglow with enthusiasm, "it's time for recess! Why, where has the morning gone! Well, girls, you'll have to take the same lesson over again for to-morrow."

She was very simple minded, Miss Lucy was, and she understood the situation just as little as I did myself.

Janet McLarin was Scotch, and she was canny. She could do every sum in the arithmetic; but when the day came for compositions she would put her bright head down in her lap and groan.

"I wish I was dead," she would say, despairingly. "I do! I do!"

Cebelia was more stoical; but she would fold great pleats in her apron, and frown at the blackboard. Miss Lucy always wrote the subjects for the compositions on the blackboard, one under the other, beautifully written out for our decision.

They were lovely, lovely subjects! I would sit and look at them in a blissful dream.

One day, the very first composition day, I remember Grace gave me a little shake.

"Which one are you going to take?" she demanded, dolefully.

"I don't know," I answered, with a happy smile.

"Girls," Grace cried, "I believe Rhoda could write them all! She likes to write!"

Miss Lucy was out of the room, and I remember that they all came around me, and looked at me, as if I had been a strange animal.

"Rhoda," Janet McLarin cried, taking her head out of her lap, "if you'll write my composition for me I'll give you my best blue hair ribbon. My Sunday one. Honest."

I didn't want the hair ribbon; but I nodded at her.

"I'll write it," I said.

"Will you write me one, Rhoda, dear?" Grace asked, jealously, with her face against mine. "You are my friend, not hers."

"I'll write yours, too," I agreed.

"And one for me?"

"And for me?"

I nodded at them, generously.

"I'll write one for everybody," I declared, with a glow of pleasure.

"But don't tell anyone," Janet cautioned.

I couldn't understand why she insisted on making a secret of it. It seemed so strange. But I promised to tell no one, not even my own mother.

We always had two days in which to write our compositions. I did ten in that time. I wrote them out roughly on great sheets of wrapping paper. I wrote them up in the garret by the window where the wasps lived, and I had such a grand time that I never noticed the wasps at all; but went on and on finding something new to say every minute, and loving to say it. Only it was hard when the sentences happened to come out beautifully not to be able to show them to my mother. But I had promised. However, the very best composition of all was to be my own, and that I might show to her. I remember it was on "The Beauty of Truth."

"It's very nice," my mother said, when it was put in her hand. "It's—it's almost like a sermon!"

She looked at the composition, with an odd smile of pleasure, and then she drew me to her and kissed me fondly.

"I think Rhoda would make a fine wife for a minister," I heard her tell my father, excitedly. "She's got so much natural piety!"

I was very happy that morning as I went to school. I carried my roll of wrapping paper under my arm, and when I reached Mrs. Garfield's I divided the compositions among the girls, so that they might each copy her own. Afterwards they were all handed up to Miss Lucy and school began.

Miss Lucy took a long time over the compositions. She read them and read them. She looked astonished, and, also, a trifle pleased. At last she gathered them all up in a bundle, and went out of the room. It was very quiet in the room. Every little girl sat at her desk and studied very busily. All except Janet McLarin. She opened the side window and climbed out. The last we could see of her was her bright hair vanishing around the corner with a rush. Then we could hear the sound of Miss Lucy's stout boots coming along the hall, and a swish of silk beside her.

"She's bringing Mrs. Garfield!" Grace whispered, horror-stricken.

Up to that time I had not been frightened, for there was nothing to be frightened about; but fear is contagious, and somehow I began to be scared myself.

Mrs. Garfield stood up in front of us with a roll of papers in her hand.

"Young ladies," she began, "I have something very serious to say to you, something which it gives me great pain to say. Your compositions have come in this morning, and your teacher has been surprised at them. She has referred the matter to me. I in my turn have been surprised."

She paused. The room was very, very still.

"I find myself driven to the conclusion that not one of these compositions has been written by a member of this class. They have been written by somebody else. They have been written by an outsider. I demand to know who has written them."

I felt very funny inside my breast. My eyes were full of tears. I looked at Mrs. Garfield standing up there, very severe, and somewhat angry, and at Miss Lucy beside her, with a bewildered expression. I looked at rows of pale little girls at their desks. I looked at Grace. Oh, it was cruel, cruel! They had never told me that I was doing wrong. I had loved them so, and given them my best, and they had all betrayed me! Even Grace! Then I thought of "The Beauty of Truth." I rose up from my seat.

"I did it, Mrs. Garfield," I confessed, brokenly. "I wrote them myself."

Then I cried, my heart breaking inside of me.

There was a rustle at the next desk.

"It isn't Rhoda's fault," Grace's voice exclaimed. "She wrote them, but we asked her to. We are all bad, just as bad as she is. And Janet McLarin who has gone out of the window is the worst of us all!"

If fear is contagious, so is confession. There was a perfect storm of tearful explanations and excuses. They all told Mrs. Garfield how it had been done, and they showed her the wrapping paper. One little girl offered me a piece of chewing gum quite openly to comfort me, and Miss Lucy dried my eyes on her own pocket-handkerchief.

All that Mrs. Garfield said was, "Well!"

But she said it with an air of astonishment.

Afterwards she called me into her own private sanctum, the place where people went to be scolded, and felt the bumps on my forehead.

"Child," she said, "you have great originality. The region of sublimity is large. So is that of humor. I predict a future for you. I do, indeed. Do you understand what I mean?"

"No, ma'am," I answered, timidly.

"I mean that some day you will write greater things than these wrapping paper compositions. I mean that with hard work, hard work, mind you, you may write books. You may become an authoress!"

She shook hands with me quite seriously when I went away as though with an equal. The next moment she called me back, and kissed me, holding me close to her silk breast.

"You have talent, dear child," she said. "I will develop it. I will watch over you. Some day there will be books!"

I went home very bewildered, but very happy. I looked at the worn places on the stair carpet almost tenderly. I laid my cheek against my mother's old winter coat hanging up in the hall. Suppose the fortune which Norah had read in the teacup should come true! Suppose that I should be the one to buy the new things, to make soft the narrow life, to reimburse the dear ones who gave and gave and never thought of the sacrifice. Just suppose! It was as if a great white door had opened before me.