I arrived at my mother's home for our Saturday family dinner. The smells of food flew over from the kitchen. Mother was pulling out quilt after quilt from the boxes, proudly showing me their beauties. I knew they were all made herself. She was preparing for a quilt show on TV. When we began to fold and put them back into the boxes, I noticed something at the bottom of one box.

    I pulled it out. "What's this?" I asked.

    "Oh?" Mom said, "That's Mama's quilt."

    I spread the quilt. It looked as if a group of school children had made the pieces together.

    "Grandmother made this?" I asked in surprise. My grandmother was a master at making quilts. This certainly didn't look like any of the quilts she had made.

    "Yes, right before she died. I brought it home with me last year and made some changes,"

Mom said, "I'm still working on it. See, this is what I've done so far."

    I looked at it more closely. She had made a line straight(直的). At the center of the quilt, she had stitched a piece of cloth with these words: "My mother made many quilts. She didn't get all lines straight. But I think this is beautiful. I want to see it finished. Her last quilt."

    "Oh, this is so nice, Mom." I said. I was sure now that by completing my grandmother's quilt, my mother was honoring her own mother. I realized that I held in my hands a family treasure. It started with the loving hands of one woman, and continued with the loving hands of another.

    Every evening at six o'clock an old man goes to a restaurant near his house. He eats dinner. After dinner, he drinks coffee and talks to the people at the restaurant.

    The old man's name is Bill. Bill eats at the restaurant every evening because he is lonely. His wife died and he has no children.

    Every evening the same waitress(女服务员)brings Bill to his dinner. Her name is Cara. She is 17 years old. Cara is kind to Bill. She knows he is lonely, so she talks to him. If Bill is late for dinner, she calls him on the telephone. “Are you OK?” she asks him.

    One evening Bill doesn't come to the restaurant. Cara calls him, but he doesn't answer the phone. Cara calls the police. “Please go to Bill's house.” Cara tells the police. Later the police call Cara at the restaurant. “Bill died in his sleep,” the police tell her. Bill was 82 years old.

    A week later, a man comes to the restaurant. “I have something for Cara,” the man says. The man gives Cara a check(支票) for $500000. The money is from Bill.

“This money is for me? From Bill?” Cara asks the man.

    “Yes,” the man answers.

    “But…why?” Cara asks the man.

    “Bill liked you,” the man says. “You were kind to him”

    The Lee Family was asleep in bed when the smoke alarm outside their bedroom went off. Mr. Lee knew something was wrong. He ran downstairs and was surprised to see that the kitchen was full of smoke. Firstly, he closed the kitchen door to keep the other members of the family were safe. They each took a coat quickly from the living room, came downstairs and ran outside. Ala, their pet dog, followed closely behind. They chose a safe place in the yard. Mr. Lee told his son, "Never go back inside!"

    Their neighbour Mr. Bell, who lived opposite, said he had already called the emergency services. He had come downstairs for a drink of water and had seen the fire through his kitchen window. The fire engine arrived shortly afterwards, and the firefighters soon had everything under control.

    Mrs Lee was crying, so Mr. Lee put his arm round her and said, "Don't worry. Our insurance company will pay for all the damage. "Mrs Lee said, "That is not why I am crying. I think the fire was caused by my carelessness. When I boiled the milk for our bedtime drink, I may have forgotten to turn off the gas ring. Something must have fallen onto it and caught fire.

    In ancient China, there was a man called Zhou Yong. Before his father died, he left Zhou Yong a great number of gold ingots (元宝). Zhou hid them in a safe place in his home. One day, Zhou decided to travel far away. He was afraid that someone would steal the gold ingots. But they were too heavy for him to bring along with him. So he put all the ingots into a jar (坛子) and gave it to his friend Wang Wu, telling Wang that the jar was full of fresh red dates (红枣).

    A year later, one day before Zhou came back, Wang's wife wondered what was in the jar. So she secretly opened it. She was shocked when she saw so many ingots inside. She told Wang about it and they took the ingots out and filled the jar with fresh red dates.

    When Wang returned the jar to Zhou, Zhou found the ingots were missing. They argued about it for a while, then they went to see the county magistrate (县官).

    When the magistrate asked Wang what had happened, he answered, "Zhou said that there were fresh red dates in it when he gave me the jar a year ago."

    The magistrate examined the jar and the fresh red dates in it carefully. Then he said: "Bring the ingots back, Wang Wu!"

    Wang still denied (否认)having taken them. But after the magistrate explained what he knew, Wang finally admitted (承认)that he had taken the ingots.