Page:What the pine tree heard (IA whatpinetreehear00yate).pdf/26

 to me one time. It is quite a long story; may I tell you?"

"Please do."

"Well, it was this way: Once, when I was a very little girl, only six years old, just before things began to get dim, Mamma gave me a lovely string of coral beads,—these, you see,—and I liked them better than anything I had ever had, and Mamma let me wear them all the time. One day in winter I was sitting on the rug before the fire playing with my kitten, and I took off my beads for Kitty to run after, and by and by I laid them out in a circle on the rug and began to count them, and I grew sleepy and went sound asleep. When I waked up, the first thing I thought of was my lovely corals, and I reached out for them and they were gone. Oh, you don't know how badly I felt! I looked