time
came for making recitations, the young people exhibited marked signs
of embarrassment; but one by one they acquitted themselves creditably.
At length a little blue-eyed, sunny-haired child ascended the platform
and recited "The Old Oaken Bucket," with wonderful pathos, so accurate
was her enunciation, so impressive the varying cadences of her sweet
voice.

"Who is she?" I inquired the great man when the storm of applause had
somewhat subsided.

"We call her 'Daisy of the Glen,'" was the reply. "She is a prodigy for
her age. Her history is a little singular. She was found not far from
here in a wild glen, or ravine, when about three years old, and has
never been able to tell who or where her parents are. But I will relate
the circumstances to you at another time. At present the trustees are
pressing in their invitation to you to say something to the children."

Whereupon the grandest orator of his day arose and addressed a few
remarks in simple language to his youthful audience. He told them of the
day, when on the highway from Virginia into the Blue Grass region, he
rode into their woodland council on the rugged spot where their pretty
little village now stood. And as their forefathers had cultivated the
then dense wilderness, so he admonished them to study and improve their
minds in school. Great men and noted women had already sprung into fame
from their young city, and many a glorious achievement of word, of pen,
and of sword, had given renown to the place whose birth he had
incidentally witnessed in the long ago.

When he ceased speaking he had implanted the germ of honest ambition in
the hearts of many of the little men and women whose future influence
was to wield power for good or ill. That night, seated among friends
in the best room the little tavern afforded, Henry Clay learned further
particulars concerning wee, winsome Daisy of the Glen, whose appearance
and address had so charmed his fancy. She was evidently a stolen child.
Her dress, when she was discovered by a hunter, was fine, and her whole
appearance indicative of an easy sphere of life. It was supposed that a
band of gypsies had decoyed her away while carelessly straying too far
from her home, but nothing definite was known. Mrs. Templeton, a kind,
motherly woman, without children, had cheerfully given the little
stranger shelter, and had in time grown so fond of her that she could
not bear the thought of parting. Hence, after the first unsu