The questioner laughed pleasantly. "Oh, I'm not so sure of that. I have a friend who plays the violin in a way to bring tears to people's eyes, and he never touched one until he was thirty years old; hadn't time until then. He was an apprentice, and had his trade to master, and himself to get well started in it before he had time for music; but when he came to leisure, he made music a delight to himself and to others." "A great deal can be done with leisure time," said another of the guests. "Mr. Sherrill, you remember Myers, your college classmate? He did not learn to read, you know, until he was seventeen." "What?" said Norm, astonished out of his diffidence; "didn't know how to read!" "No," repeated the gentleman, "not until he was seventeen. He had a hard childhood--was kicked about in the world, with no leisure and no help, had to work evenings as well as days, but when he was seventeen he fell into kinder hands, and had a couple of hours each evening all to himself, and he mastered reading, not only, but all the common studies, and graduated from college with honor when he was twenty-six." Now Norm had all his evenings to lounge about in, and had not known what to do with them; and he could read quite well. THE TWO LITTLE PIGS. ONE bright summer morning as I was strolling toward the beach, on the island of Mackinac, I saw a short distance ahead of me, two little pigs, one perfectly white and the other perfectly black, both the same size, trudging along side by side in the same direction as myself, seemingly engaged in earnest conversation. They seemed so out of place, and I was so curious to know whither they were bound, that I followed them unobserved. They did not walk aimlessly, but as if they had some special object in view, and some definite destination. I wondered what they would do when they reached the water. I was not long in being answered. Without a moment's hesitation, they plunged into the waves, side by side, and swam out and away toward another island, six miles distant. I stood and watched them until their two little heads looked like balls bobbing up and down, side by side all the time. When I related the incident to the landlord, a little later, he looked astonished and annoyed. "Those pigs," he said, "were to have been served up for dinner to-day. They were brought here this morning in a boat from that island, six miles away, and we thought we might allow them their freedom for the short time they had to live, never thinking of their making an attempt to return home. And did you notice," he continued, "they chose the point of land nearest the island where they came from, to enter the water? Singular, the little animals should have been so bright? And, furthermore, they weren't landed there; that makes it more strange." I, too, left the island that day, and I have never heard whether those brave little pigs ever reached their destination or not.--_Harper's Young People._ DECORATION DAY.