Then the doors were coolly opened, and the two little girls, one whimperingly and the other scornfully, marched slowly back to the teacher's desk.

Yes, I smashed

"I will answer your question now, Miss B. Polly in the ante-room, to teach her not to lie! Now you may smash me all you want to!" What could any teacher do with such an invitation?

In vain did Miss B. plead and threaten by turns. Annie still had her fights, and was constantly reported for misconduct by the teachers of the building. There was, to be sure, a change in the school-room. Annie was trying to be good to her own teacher, but one afternoon she had been unusually troublesome. Seemingly, from a teacher's point of view, there was nothing too bad for Annie to do. No solar light came from impish eyes that afternoon. "What will happen before four o'clock?" nervously thought the teacher.

Sometimes she feared rather than admired Annie's possibilities. "I believe the child is not one whit better than when she came to my room," she sadly thought for the hundredth time.

The class was very busy reading "The Little Lame Prince." Annie was casting reflections on the wall with a little piece of broken mirror, to the delight of the good little boy at the end of the row.

Suddenly the mirror was put away, and Annie was as busily reading. Was this mere pretense? No, for the remaining ten minutes she read steadily on to herself, losing her place with the class; but little did that relieved teacher reck such an offense as worth noticing from Annie.

At last the four o'clock gong struck, and, believing the worst over for that day, the teacher dismissed the class. But in the

ante-room the evil moment could wait no longer, and it was a stern individual who, after an exciting combat, separated two fighting girls.

sulkily took her seat,

“Oh, Annie!” she said, as the child "there is nothing more I can do for you! You may sit there for half an hour, and then tell me what you think about it yourself!"

Strangely subdued, Annie sat quietly in her seat.

A sense of defeat, a feeling of helpless love for the little girl overflowed the teacher's heart, as, with arm around her, half an hour later, she said, "Annie, tell me, dear, why I haven't helped You know I have wanted to! There is nothing on you more. earth but what I would do, if it would only make you a good girl!"

A look of incredulity spread over Annie's face.

"I mean it, Annie. Is there anything I could get you; anything you specially want, that I could buy for you, to help make you better, dear?”

The child's eyes fell; and then a half-daring gleam of light came. "Yes'm," she answered abruptly.

“What, Annie?”

"Please, ma'am, do you remember what 'The Little Lame Prince' had given him! I had rather have that than anything else in the world!"

Now this teacher wasn't remarkable for her stupidity, but the only thing that occurred to her then as a gift to "The Little Lame Prince" was the little white kitten.

"Annie!" she exclaimed, "you shall have one! If there is a little white kitten in the whole city, you shall have it. If you will only be good, and not 'smash' Polly any more!"

Impulsively she drew the little girl to her, and kissed the little downcast face!

Annie raised her head or was it Annie? that little sweet face with love-filled eyes and upward look? Had the promise of a white kitten worked these wonders?

Without a word, the little girl took her hat and went to the door. There she turned, and timidly she had never been timid before said, "Please, I'll never smash Polly again, as long as I live; but please, I don't want any old white kitten. Oh! Miss B., don't you remember what the fairy godmother gave the little prince that we read about this afternoon? You know he'd never been kissed before and and and I hadn't, either!" The door went to with a bang, and the teacher was inside and the little girl was outside, but both were wearing the “upward look," for where "darkness had been, without form and void," the Eternal Love had said "Let there be Light!"

- EMMA BATES HARVEY.

AN EXTRACT FROM THE LIFE OF HELEN KELLER

Helen made many friends, and among her correspondents we find the names of well-known people. Sometimes she was taken to call upon these friends. She described her first meeting with Dr. Holmes in this way:

"I remember well the first time I saw Dr. Holmes. He had invited Miss Sullivan and me to call upon him in the spring just after I had learned to speak. We were shown at once to his library, where we found him seated in a big arm-chair by an open fire which glowed, and crackled on the hearth, thinking, he said, of other days. "And listening to the murmur of the River

Charles," I suggested. "Yes" he replied, "the Charles has many dear associations for me." There was an odor of paint and leather in the room which told me that it was full of books, and I stretched out my hands instinctively to find them. My fingers lighted upon a beautiful volume of Tennyson's poems, and when Miss Sullivan told me what it was, I began to recite:'Break, break, break

On thy cold gray stones, O sea!'

But I stopped suddenly; I felt tears on my hand. I had made my beloved poet weep and I was greatly disturbed. He made me sit in his arm-chair while he brought different interesting things for me to examine, and at his request I recited ‘The Chambered Nautilus,' which was then my favorite poem. After that I saw Dr. Holmes many times and learned to love the man as well as the poet."

Not long after the call, Helen wrote this letter to Dr. Holmes:

DEAR, KIND POET:

South Boston, Mass.,
March 1, 1890.

I have thought of you many times since that bright Sunday when I bade you good-by; and I am going to write you a letter because I love you. I am sorry that you have no little children to play with you sometimes; but I think you are very happy with your books, and your many, many friends.

On Washington's birthday a great many people came here to see the blind children; and I read to them about some beautiful shells which came from a little island near Palos.

I am reading a very sad story called "Little Jakey." Jakey

was the sweetest little fellow you can imagine, but he was poor and blind. I used to think - when I was small, and before I could read that everybody was always happy, and at first it made me very sad to know that we could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

I am studying about insects in zoölogy, and I have learned many things about butterflies. They do not make honey for us, like the bees, but many of them are as beautiful as the flowers they light upon, and they always delight the hearts of little children. They live a gay life, flitting from flower to flower, sipping the drops of honey dew, without a thought for the morrow. They are just like little boys and girls when they forget books and studies, and run away to the woods and the fields, to gather wild flowers, or wade in the ponds for fragrant lilies, happy in the bright sunshine.

If my little sister comes to Boston next June, may I bring her to see you? She is a lovely baby, and I am sure you will love her.

Now I must tell my gentle poet good-by, for I have a letter to write home before I go to bed.

From your loving little friend,

HELEN A. KELLER.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings