, as of the old
woman in the nursery rhyme; only Cannie had no little dog at hand to
help her to a realization of her own identity.

Into Candace's bare little cradle in the hill country had been dropped
one precious endowment. From both her father and her mother she
inherited the love of reading. If old tales were true, and the
gift-conferring fairies really came to stand round a baby's bed, each
with a present in her hand, I think out of all that they could bestow I
should choose for any child in whom I was interested, these two
things,--a quick sense of humor and a love for books. There is nothing
so lasting or so satisfying. Riches may take wing, beauty fade, grace
vanish into fat, a sweet voice become harsh, rheumatism may cripple the
fingers which played or painted so deftly,--with each and all of these
delightful things time may play sad tricks; but to life's end the power
to see the droll side of events is an unfailing cheer, and so long as
eyes and ears last, books furnish a world of interest and escape whose
doors stand always open. Winds may blow and skies may rain, fortune may
prove unkind, days may be lonely and evenings dull; but for the true
lover of reading there is always at hand this great company of
companions and friends,--the wisest, the gentlest, the best,--never too
tired or too busy to talk with him, ready at all moments to give their
thought, their teaching, to help, instruct, and entertain. They never
disappoint, they have no moods or tempers, they are always at home,--in
all of which respects they differ from the rest of our acquaintance. If
the man who invented sleep is to be blessed, thrice blessed be the man
who invented printing!

There were not many books in the old yellow farm-house at North Tolland;
but all that there were Cannie had read over and over again. Shakspeare
she knew by heart, and "Paradise Lost," and Young's "Night Thoughts,"
and Pollock's "Course of Time." She had dipped into her dead father's
theological library, and managed to extract some food for her
imagination, even from such dry bones as "Paley's Evidences" and
"Edwards on the Will and the Affections." Any book was better than no
book to her. Aunt Myra, who discouraged the practice of reading for
girls as unfitting them for any sort of useful work, used to declare
that the very sight of a book made Cannie deaf and blind and dumb.

"You might as well be Laura what's-her-name and have done with it," she
would tell