our book-case," I said, "in reaching down some
books. It is someone I know, someone I have met, but I cannot think
where. Do you know who it is?"

The woman took it from my hand, and a faint flush crossed her withered
face. "I had lost it," she answered. "I never thought of looking there.
It's a portrait of myself, painted years ago, by a friend."

I looked from her to the miniature, as she stood among the shadows, with
the lamplight falling on her face, and saw her perhaps for the first
time.

"How stupid of me," I answered. "Yes, I see the likeness now."

THE MAN WHO WOULD MANAGE

It has been told me by those in a position to know--and I can believe
it--that at nineteen months of age he wept because his grandmother would
not allow him to feed her with a spoon, and that at three and a half he
was fished, in an exhausted condition, out of the water-butt, whither he
had climbed for the purpose of teaching a frog to swim.

Two years later he permanently injured his left eye, showing the cat how
to carry kittens without hurting them, and about the same period was
dangerously stung by a bee while conveying it from a flower where, as it
seemed to him, it was only wasting its time, to one more rich in honey-
making properties.

His desire was always to help others. He would spend whole mornings
explaining to elderly hens how to hatch eggs, and would give up an
afternoon's black-berrying to sit at home and crack nuts for his pet
squirrel. Before he was seven he would argue with his mother upon the
management of children, and reprove his father for the way he was
bringing him up.

As a child nothing could afford him greater delight than "minding" other
children, or them less. He would take upon himself this harassing duty
entirely of his own accord, without hope of reward or gratitude. It was
immaterial to him whether the other children were older than himself or
younger, stronger or weaker, whenever and wherever he found them he set
to work to "mind" them. Once, during a school treat, piteous cries were
heard coming from a distant part of the wood, and upon search being made,
he was discovered prone upon the ground, with a cousin of his, a boy
twice his own weight, sitting upon him and steadily whacking him. Having
rescued him, the teacher said:

"Why don't you keep with the little boys? What are you doing along with
him?"

"Please, sir," was the answer, "I was minding him."

He would have "mi