curiosity about anything. In the midst of the group stood a frail-looking
woman with bright eyes. She was telling a story, a children's story, about
a good and a bad little mouse.

She had been asked to do that thing, for a purpose, and she did it,
therefore. But it was easy to see from the expressions of the listeners
how trivial a thing it seemed to them.

That was at first. But presently the room grew quieter; and yet quieter.
The faces relaxed into amused smiles, sobered in unconscious sympathy,
finally broke in ripples of mirth. The story-teller had come to her own.

The memory of the college girls listening to the mouse-story brought other
memories with it. Many a swift composite view of faces passed before my
mental vision, faces with the child's look on them, yet not the faces of
children. And of the occasions to which the faces belonged, those were
most vivid which were earliest in my experience. For it was those early
experiences which first made me realise the modern possibilities of the
old, old art of telling stories.

It had become a part of my work, some years ago, to give English lectures
on German literature. Many of the members of my class were unable to read
in the original the works with which I dealt, and as these were modern
works it was rarely possible to obtain translations. For this reason, I
gradually formed the habit of telling the story of the drama or novel in
question before passing to a detailed consideration of it. I enjoyed this
part of the lesson exceedingly, but it was some time before I realised how
much the larger part of the lesson it had become to the class. They
used--and they were mature women--to wait for the story as if it were a
sugarplum and they, children; and to grieve openly if it were omitted.