be glad to find a book you could read, even Mother Goose? At first I
hardly dared to open it, for I was afraid it might be in some unknown
language, and that would have been too great a disappointment; but at
length I peeped in, and there was a little hymn I used to sing with my
mother, and another and another. It was the very same hymn book I had
at home--one just like it I mean, only very worn and old, as if it had
been read a great many times. And I shall read it many, many times;
for although I once knew all the hymns in it by heart, I have
forgotten them now. But they will soon return to my memory. I sat on
the little stool singing them over to myself in a low voice, until it
seemed as if my mother were really singing them with me; and now I
shall go to bed and sing myself to sleep with one of them.

* * * * *

Dear Children: I have not written to you for several days, because I
have not needed to write, I have been so happy with my hymn book. And
besides, I have found in the cupboard some small, sharp tools, with
which the images in the little room must have been carved, and I am
carving a figure on the wooden stool. It is very pretty, I think. It
is our little baby feeding a robin. Perhaps you would not think it a
good likeness of baby, but I do, it is such a chubby little
thing. Only I cannot carve very well, I have had so little practice.
But I draw a great deal from the statues in the ivory room, and am
learning very fast. I sing to myself while I am at work; and when I
wander, singing, in the great halls, to rest myself, there comes a
strange echo through the lofty rooms. One day, when I was dancing
along, humming a little song I used to sing with Mary, I met the old
man, and he laid his hand upon my head. It seemed for a moment as if
it must be my own father, and I almost threw my arms around him, but