"But, my dearest, I'm afraid--I don't believe--you could learn to dance
--very well," her mother faltered.

"Oh, mamma, _I_ couldn't learn to dance _at all_!" the little girl
exclaimed, as if surprised that her mother did not fully realize this
fact.

"Then, dearest, why do you want to go to dancing-school?" her mother
asked gently.

"The other girls in my class at school are all going," the child said.

Her mother was silent; and the little girl came closer and lifted
pleading eyes to her face. "_Please_ let me go!" she begged. "The others
are all going," she repeated.

"I could not bear to refuse her," the mother wrote to me later. "I let
her go. I feared that it would only make her feel her lameness the more
keenly and be a source of distress to her. But it isn't; she enjoys it.
She cannot even try to learn to dance; but she takes pleasure in being
present and watching the others, to say nothing of wearing a 'dancing-
school dress,' as they do. This morning she said to her father: 'I can't
dance, Papa; but I can talk about it. I learn how at dancing-school. Oh,
I love dancing-school!'"

Her particular accomplishment maybe of minute value in itself; but is
not her content in it a priceless good? If she can continue to enjoy
learning only to talk about the pleasures her lameness will not permit
her otherwise to share, her dancing-school lessons will have taught her
better things than they taught "the other children," who could dance.