Here Rebecca stopped suddenly, turned her head away and swallowed a lump that appeared unexpectedly in her throat. Emma Jane, who adored her, pressed her arm fondly but uncomprehendingly. "You are the queerest!" she exclaimed. "I never saw anybody before who cried when she was pleased!" Rebecca, all smiles again, dashed away the coming tear. "I've told you before, Emma Jane," she said," that you'd know lots of things if only you'd read books. 'Cora, the Doctor's Wife' and 'The Pearl of Orr's Island' always cried when they were happy. I feel as if laughs and cries came out of the same spot inside of me!" Rebecca was right and the moon told the truth. Miss Roxy had smiled, and she had dreamed. Dreams were rare occurrences in her experience, for her nights were as drab and colorless as her days. The dream carried her so far into the past that she was a child again; and the something warm that she felt about her neck was her sister's arm--the sister she loved best of all. MATT MILLIKEN'S IMPROVEMENTS The teacher of the Riverboro district school sat behind her desk, correcting compositions. The twenty-eight pupils, varying in age from four to fifteen, had departed, and Undine Berry had opened the windows wide in order that the last trace of them should be dispersed. Each separate pupil was a clean, healthy, country girl or boy, but collectively they exhaled an odor of muddy shoes and rubbers, lead and slate pencils, concealed doughnuts or cookies, peppermint lozenges, boxes of angleworms for bait, and other necessary accompaniments to the acquisition of knowledge. There was room for occasional discouragement on the part of a district school-teacher in a small Maine village. Out of Undine's twenty-eight there were nine to be taught their "letters." There was a group struggling in arithmetic from fractions to percentage; there were toilers in the labyrinths of grammar, but Undine's task to-day was more than usually exasperating, for the superintendent had put a new plan in operation with a view of obtaining better results in the way of compositions. "If the children understand fully what they read, Miss Berry, they will be better able to write freely, when the occasion comes. For next week's compositions, Miss Berry, instead of calling upon them for creative work, give them fifteen minutes without previous notice, and ask them to write from memory any verses they have read or recited this term. You will then discover the influence of certain poems upon their imagination and be able to tell how correctly they can recall them for you." The acid test had been applied that day, and the disheveled results were on the desk in front of the teacher, whose glance was directed to the few lines contributed by a certain freckle-faced Tommy Mixter, who was perhaps the sharpest and most active thorn in Miss Berry's tender flesh. Tommy's half-hour of agonized effort had produced this brief and inspired result: