ficial chatter
about books and authors, pictures and music--both English and
foreign--is too often passed as the real coin of the great realm of
literature, when it is but a base imitation, stamped, it may be, on a
showy surface with the same token, but utterly worthless when the first
brilliancy is worn off.

"Come, my dear Miss Falconer," was Mrs. More's greeting to Joyce; "come
and sit near me, that we may have a pleasant chat. Tell me how you have
sped since I saw you, and whether you have studied the Book I gave you."

"Yes, madam," Joyce said, as she seated herself on a high Chippendale
chair, the seat covered with fine cross-stitch, close to Mrs. More;
"yes, madam, I have read all the passages you marked; and I had no
notion before that the Bible was so beautiful."

"Ah, my child, it is a deep mine; its treasures do not lie on the
surface; and let me tell you that I, who have drunk of the waters at
many springs, find in the Bible alone, the living fountain of water.
Your aunt told me she was anxious as to your education; she thought you
needed more than your good father found it convenient to give you."

"Father has so many boys," Joyce said, "and, of course, boarding schools
are very expensive. I have had to help mother a great deal at home, and
I never wished to go to school. I think Aunt Letitia means by education
accomplishments like Charlotte's, and I have none of them. But," Joyce
went on, "I have a very clever brother, Ralph, and, when he is at home
for the holidays, I write his Latin exercises, and he corrects them, and
I can read French with him; and then I know a good deal of natural
history--because my brother Piers is lame, and nothing amuses him like
collections of birds, and moths, and insects."

"Well," Hannah More said, smiling, "I think you have laid a very good
foundation; upon this, as you grow older, you can build up many fair
temples of knowledge, and I hope they will be ornamented by wisdom. You
know my story, I dare say."

Joyce hesitated, "I know you write plays and books. We have 'Christian
Morals,' and 'Village Politics.' But----"

"Oh," Hannah More said, "those are my published works. I was alluding to
the story of my own life. I always like to bring it before the young,
because I can say to them, I have tasted all the world can give, and
found it vanity. My dear, if I were now depending on the favours of the
great for happiness, or the showering upon me of the fame which my
lit