"I suppose I've done a mean thing," she thought. "But it is too late now to alter matters. Moral courage isn't my specialty, I imagine," and she sighed heavily.
Just then a quaint figure, waving an old green silk parasol, came into sight around a bend in the road. It was Aunt Patty. Her face fairly beamed as she saw Ida.
"Watching for me, dearie?" she called out, as she drew within speaking-distance. "Bless your tender heart! Well, I've something grand to tell you girls. Such good news. Where's Cynthia?"
[THE IMP OF THE TELEPHONE.]
BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.
IV.—THE LIBRARY.
The Imp opened a small door upon the right of the room, and through it Jimmieboy saw another apartment, the walls of which were lined with books, and as he entered he saw that to each book was attached a small wire, and that at the end of the library was a square piece of snow-white canvas stretched across a small wooden frame.
"Magic lantern?" he queried, as his eye rested upon the canvas.
"Kind of that way," said the Imp, "though, not exactly. You see, these books about here are worked by electricity, like everything else here. You never have to take the books off the shelf. All you have to do is to fasten the wire connected with the book you want to read with the battery, turn on the current, and the book reads itself to you aloud. Then if there are pictures in it, as you come to them they are thrown by means of an electric light upon that canvas."