er of
tales? Or perhaps you believe in the transmigration of souls, and think
that the spirit of some AEsop of old, who spoke in parables, had entered
the frail crippled body of our little Lib, and spoke through her pinched
pale lips. I leave you your theories, I keep my own.

But one thing which I find I have omitted thus far may seem to you to
throw a little light on this matter. It does not help me much. Lib was a
wonderful listener, as well as a narrator. Miss Jane sometimes took an
occasional boarder. Teachers, clergymen, learned professors, had from
time to time tarried under her roof. And while these talked to one
another, or to some visitor from neighboring hotels, little Lib would
sit motionless and silent by the hour. One would scarcely call it
listening; to listen seems too active a verb in this case. The girl's
face wore no eager look of interest, the faded, short-sighted eyes did
not light up with intelligence, nor the features quiver with varied
emotions. If she received ideas from what fell upon her ears, it must
have been by a sort of unconscious absorption. She took it in as the
earth does the rain or the flower the sunshine. And so it was with any
reading aloud from book or paper. She would sit, utterly quiet, while
the reader's voice went on, and nothing could draw her away till it was
ended. Question her later as to what was read or spoken of, and you
gained no satisfaction. If she had any idea of what she had heard, she
had not the power of putting it into words. "I like it. I like it lots,"
she would say; that was all.

Throughout the whole summer in which I knew the child, the summer which
came so quickly, so sadly, to an end, little Lib sat, on bright, fair
days, in a low wooden chair under the maples in front of the farmhouse.
And it had grown to be the custom of her many friends, both young and
old, to gather there, and listen to her stories, if she had any to tell.
I often joined the group of listeners. On many, many days, as the season
advanced, Lib had no words for us. She had always been a fragile, puny
little creature, and this year she seemed to grow weaker, thinner, more
waxen white, each day. She had a wonderful voice, shrill, far-reaching,
but strangely sweet and clear, with a certain vibrating, reedy,
bird-like quality, which even yet thrills me as I recall it.

I am going to tell you a few of the little stories, pictures, fables,
parables, allegories,--I scarcely know what to call