him his friend has
bought his picture," said Mrs. Burnett.

On her return home Mrs. Burnett made out a check, which she inclosed in
a letter to the young painter. It was mailed simultaneously with a
letter from her protege, who had but just heard of her return from
Europe, in which he begged her to accept, as a slight expression of his
gratitude, the picture she had just purchased. The turbaned head now
adorns the hall of Mrs. Burnett's house in Washington.

"I do not understand it even to-day," declares Mr. W----. "I knew
nothing of Mrs. Burnett, nor she of me. Why did she do it? I only know
that that hundred dollars was worth more to me then than fifty thousand
in gold would be now. I lived upon it a whole year, and it put me on my
feet."

Mr. W---- is a successful artist, now favorably known in his own
country and in England for the strength and promise of his work.

THE CALL THAT SPEAKS IN THE BLOOD

Nature took the measure of little Tommy Edwards for a round hole, but
his parents, teachers, and all with whom his childhood was cast, got it
into their heads that Tommy was certainly intended for a square hole.
So, with the best intentions in the world,--but oh, such woeful
ignorance!--they tortured the poor little fellow and crippled him for
life by trying to fit him to their pattern instead of that designed for
him by the all-wise Mother.

Mother Nature called to Tommy to go into the woods and fields, to wade
through the brooks, and make friends with all the living things she had
placed there,--tadpoles, beetles, frogs, crabs, mice, rats, spiders,
bugs,--everything that had life. Willingly, lovingly did the little lad
obey, but only to be whipped and scolded by good Mother Edwards when he
let loose in her kitchen the precious treasures which he had collected
in his rambles.

It was provoking to have rats, mice, toads, bugs, and all sorts of
creepy things sent sprawling over one's clean kitchen floor. But the
pity of it was that Mrs. Edwards did not understand her boy, and
thought the only cure for what she deemed his mischievous propensity as
whipping. So Tommy was whipped and scolded, and scolded and whipped,
which, however, did not in the least abate his love for Nature.

Driven to desperation, his mother bethought her of a plan. She would
make the boy prisoner and see if this would tame him. With a stout rope
she tied him by the leg to a table, and shut him in a room alone. But
no sooner was the