ul, indeed, were I to hate
you. The word is strong."

"Yet you prefer even that hump-backed child to me or my society," she
said, peevishly.

"The comparison cannot be instituted with any propriety," I responded,
gravely, turning away and dismissing the boy to his blocks and books, as
I did so, which made for him, I knew, a fairy kingdom of delight,
through the aid of his splendid imagination.

A commonplace infant will tire of the choicest toys; they are to such
minds but effigies and delusion, which last, the delight of imaginative
infancy, to the cut and dried, dull, childish understanding is
impossible.

I once overheard one little girl at a theatre--a splendid spectacle,
calculated to dazzle and delight imaginative childhood--say to another:
"It is nothing but make-believe! That house and garden are only painted.
See how they shake! And the women are dressed in paste jewelry, like
that our cook-maid wears to parties, and no jeweler would give a cent
for them; and the fairies are poor girls, dressed up for the occasion;
and the whole play is made up as they go. You see, I know all about it,
father says."

I heard no more, but had a glimpse of a little, eager face suddenly
dashed in its expression, and of small fingers pressed to unwilling ears
to shut out unwelcome truths.

The discriminating child seemed a little monster in my eyes, who ought
to have been sent out of the way at once of all companions capable of
_abandon_ and enjoyment; and, as to the "father" she quoted from, I
could imagine him as the embodiment of asinine wisdom, so to speak--the
quintessence of the practical, which so often, I observe, inclines its
devotees to idiocy!

I knew very well that Wattie was not of the stamp to doubt the truth and
splendor of "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp," or "Cinderella," as
surveyed from the stage-box, in his confiding infancy, any more than to
believing in baubles when the time came to justly discriminate. Woe for
the incredulous child, too matter-of-fact to be enlisted in the
creations of fancy, and who tastes in infancy the chief bitterness of
age--the incapability of surrendering life to the ideal!

How fresh imagination keeps the heart--how young! What a glorious gift
it is when rightly used and governed! Hear Charlotte Bronte's testimony,
as recorded by her biographer: "They are all gone," she says, "the
sisters I so loved, and I have only my imagination left to comfort me.
But for this solace I s