“Hideous!” Peggy shrugged her shoulders and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I am going to try to grow old as fast as I can, so that I can wear mittens and cover them up. I’m really rather distressed about it because I am so—so addicted to rings, don’t you know. They have been a weakness of mine all my life, and I’ve looked forward to having my fingers simply loaded with them when I grew up. There is one of mother’s that I especially admire, a big square emerald surrounded with diamonds. She promised to give it to me on my twenty-first birthday, but unless my hands look very different by that time, I shall not want to call attention to them. Alack-a-day! I fear I shall never be able to wear a ring——”
“Gracious goodness! Then you can never be married!” ejaculated Mellicent in a tone of such horrified dismay, as evoked a shriek of merriment from the listeners, Peggy’s merry trill sounding clear above the rest. It was just delicious to be well again, to sit among her companions and have one of the old hearty laughs over Mellicent’s quaint speeches. At that moment she was one of the happiest girls in all the world!
“With the heart as well as the head, Books worth reading must be read.”
Give, give, be always giving; Who gives not is not living. The more we give The more we live.
GRAMMAR.—A school teacher, near Dawson, Ga., having instructed a pupil to purchase a grammar, the next day received a note, thus worded, from the child’s mother:—“I do not desire for Lula shall ingage in grammar as i prefer her ingage in yuseful studies and can learn her how to spoke and write properly myself. I have went through two grammars and can’t say as they did me no good. I prefer her ingage in german and drawing and vokal music on the piano.”
The great French writer, Victor Hugo, wrote delightful letters to his children, as we might expect from the fond and playful author of _L’Art d’être Grandpère_. From one of them we take the following passage. It occurs in a letter sent from Boulogne to his favourite daughter.
“All day,” he says, “I was looking at churches and pictures and then at night I gazed at the sky, and thought once more of you as I watched that beautiful constellation, the Chariot of God, which I have taught you to distinguish among the stars.