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NINE LITTLE GOSLINGS.

by

SUSAN COOLIDGE,

Author of "The New Year's Bargain," "Mischief's Thanksgiving," "What
Katy Did," "What Katy Did at School."

With Illustrations.

   CURLY LOCKS.
   GOOSEY, GOOSEY GANDER.
   LITTLE BO-PEEP.
   MISTRESS MARY.
   LADY BIRD.
   ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE.
   RIDE A COCK-HORSE.
   LADY QUEEN ANNE.
   UP, UP, UP, AND DOWN, DOWN, DOWN-Y.

Boston:
Roberts Brothers.
1893.

Copyright, 1875.
By Roberts Brothers.

University Press · John Wilson & Son,
Cambridge.

          _When nursery lamps are veiled, and nurse is singing
                        In accents low,
           Timing her music to the cradle's swinging,
                        Now fast, now slow,--_

          _Singing of Baby Bunting, soft and furry
                        In rabbit cloak,
           Or rock-a-byed amid the toss and flurry
                        Of wind-swept oak;_

          _Of Boy-Blue sleeping with his horn beside him,
                        Of my son John,
           Who went to bed (let all good boys deride him)
                        With stockings on;_

          _Of sweet Bo-Peep following her lambkins straying;
                        Of Dames in shoes;
           Of cows, considerate, 'mid the Piper's playing,
                        Which tune to choose;_

          _Of Gotham's wise men bowling o'er the billow,
                        Or him, less wise,
           Who chose rough bramble-bushes for a pillow,
                        And scratched his eyes,--_

          _It may be, while she sings, that through the portal
                        Soft footsteps glide,
           And, all invisible to grown-up mortal,
                        At cradle side_

          _Sits Mother Goose herself, the dear old mother,
                        And rocks and croons,
           In tones which Baby hearkens, but no other,
                        Her old-new tunes!_

          _I think it must be so, else why, years after,
                        Do we retrace
           And mix with shadowy, recollected laughter
                        Thoughts of that face;_

          _Seen, yet unseen, beaming across the ages,
                        Brimful of fun
           And wit and wisdom, baffling all the sages
                        Under the sun?_

          _A grown-up child has place still, which no other
                        May dare refuse;
           I, grown up, bring this offering to our Mother,
                          To Mother Goose;_

          _And, standing with the babies at that olden,
                        Immortal knee,
           I seem to feel her smile, benign and golden,
                        Falling on me._

CONTENTS.

          CHAP                                         PAGE
             I. CURLY LOCKS                               1
            II. GOOSEY, GOOSEY GANDER                    40
           III. LITTLE BO-PEEP                           65
            IV. MISTRESS MARY                           101
             V. LADY BIRD                               137
            VI. ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE                165
           VII. RIDE A COCK-HORSE                       197
          VIII. LADY QUEEN ANNE                         228
            IX. UP, UP, UP, AND DOWN, DOWN, DOWN-Y      259

CURLY LOCKS.

WHEN a little girl is six and a little boy is six, they like pretty much
the same things and enjoy pretty much the same games. She wears an
apron, and he a jacket and trousers, but they are both equally fond of
running races, spinning tops, flying kites, going down hill on sleds,
and making a noise in the open air. But when the little girl gets to be
eleven or twelve, and to grow thin and long, so that every two months a
tuck has to be let down in her frocks, then a great difference becomes
visible. The boy goes on racing and whooping and comporting himself
generally like a young colt in a pasture; but she turns quiet and shy,
cares no longer for rough play or exercise, takes droll little
sentimental fancies into her head, and likes best the books which make
her cry. Almost all girls have a fit of this kind some time or other in
the course of their lives; and it is rather a good thing to have it
early, for little folks get over such attacks more easily than big ones.
Perhaps we may live to see the day when wise mammas, going through the
list of nursery diseases which their children have had, will wind up
triumphantly with, "Mumps, measles, chicken-pox,--and they are all over
with 'Amy Herbert,' 'The Heir of Redclyffe,' and the notion that they
are going to be miserable for the rest of their lives!"

Sometimes this odd change comes after an illness when a little girl
feels weak and out of sorts, and does not know exactly what is the
matter. This is the way it came to Johnnie Carr, a girl whom some of you
who read this are already acquainted with. She had intermittent fever
the year after her sisters Katy and Clover came from boarding-school,
and was quite ill for several weeks. Everybody in the house was sorry to
have Johnnie sick. Katy nursed, petted, and cosseted her in the
tenderest way. Clover brought flowers to the bedside and read books
aloud, and told Johnnie interesting stories. Elsie cut out paper dolls
for her by dozens, painted their cheeks pink and their eyes blue, and
made for them beautiful dresses and jackets of every color and fashion.
Papa never came in without some little present or treat in his pocket
for Johnnie. So long as she was in bed, and all these nice things were
doing for her, Johnnie liked being ill very much, but when she began to
sit up and go down to dinner, and the family spoke of her as almost well
again, _then_ a time of unhappiness set in. The Johnnie who got out of
bed after the fever was not the Johnnie of a month before. There were
two inches more of her for one thing, for she had taken the opportunity
to grow prodigiously, as sick children often do. Her head ached at
times, her back felt weak, and her legs shook when she tried to run
about. All sorts of queer and disagreeable feelings attacked her. Her
hair had fallen out during the fever so that Papa thought it best to
have it shaved close. Katy made a pretty silk-lined cap for her to wear,
but the girls at school laughed at the cap, and that troubled Johnnie
very much. Then, when the new hair grew, thick and soft as the plumy
down on a bird's wing, a fresh affliction set in, for the hair came out
in small round rings all over her head, which made her look like a
baby. Elsie called her "Curly," and gradually the others adopted the
name, till at last nobody used any other except the servants, who still
said "Miss Johnnie." It was hard to recognize the old Johnnie, square
and sturdy and full of merry life, in poor, thin, whining Curly, always
complaining of something, who lay on the sofa reading story-books, and
begging Phil and Dorry to let her alone, not to tease her, and to go off
and play by themselves. Her eyes looked twice as big as usual, because
her face was so small and pale, and though she was still a pretty child,
it was in a different way from the old prettiness. Katy and Clover were
very kind and gentle always, but Elsie sometimes lost patience entirely,
and the boys openly declared that Curly was a cross-patch, and hadn't a
bit of fun left in her.

One afternoon she was lying on the sofa with the "Wide Wide World" in
her hand. Her eyelids were very red from crying over Alice's death, but
she had galloped on, and was now reading the part where Ellen
Montgomery goes to live with her rich relatives in Scotland.

"Oh, dear," sighed Johnnie. "How splendid it was for her! Just think,
Clover, riding lessons, and a watch, and her uncle takes her to see all
sorts of places, and they call her their White Rose! Oh, dear! I wish
_we_ had relations in Scotland."

"We haven't, you know," remarked Clover, threading her needle with a
fresh bit of blue worsted.

"I know it. It's too bad. Nothing ever does happen in this stupid place.
The girls in books always do have such nice times. Ellen could leap, and
she spoke French _beau_tifully. She learned at that place, you know, the
place where the Humphreys lived."

"Litchfield Co., Connecticut," said Clover mischievously. "Katy was
there last summer, you recollect. I guess they don't _all_ speak such
good French. Katy didn't notice it."

"Ellen did," persisted Johnnie. "Her uncle and all those people were so
surprised when they heard her. Wouldn't it be grand to be an adopted
child, Clover?"

"To be adopted by people who gave you your bath like a baby when you
were thirteen years old, and tapped your lips when they didn't want you
to speak, and stole your Pilgrim's Progresses? No, thank you. I would
much rather stay as I am."

"I wouldn't," replied Johnnie pensively. "I don't like this place very
much. I should love to be rich and to travel in Europe."

At this moment Papa and Katy came in together. Katy was laughing, and
Papa looked as if he had just bitten a smile off short. In his hand was
a letter.

"Oh, Clovy," began Katy, but Papa interposed with "Katy, hold your
tongue;" and though he looked quizzical as he said it, Katy saw that he
was half in earnest, and stopped at once.

"We're about to have a visitor," he went on, picking Johnnie up and
settling her in his lap,--"a distinguished visitor. Curly, you must put
on your best manners, for she comes especially to see you."

"A visitor! How nice! Who is it?" cried Clover and Johnnie with one
voice. Visitors were rare in Burnet, and the children regarded them
always as a treat.

"Her name is Miss Inches,--Marion Joanna Inches," replied Dr. Carr,
glancing at the letter. "She's a sort of godmother of yours, Curly;
you've got half her name."

"Was I really named after her?"

"Yes. She and Mamma were school-friends, and though they never met after
leaving school, Mamma was fond of her, and when little No. 4 came, she
decided to call her after her old intimate. That silver mug of yours was
a present from her."

"Was it? Where does she live?"

"At a place called Inches Mills, in Massachusetts. She's the rich lady
of the village, and has a beautiful house and grounds, where she lives
all alone by herself. Her letter is written at Niagara. She is going to
the Mammoth Cave, and writes to ask if it will be convenient for us to
have her stop for a few days on the way. She wants to see her old
friend's children, she says, and especially her namesake."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Johnnie, ruffling her short hairs with her fingers.
"I wish my curls were longer. What _will_ she think when she sees me?"

"She'll think

          "There is a little girl, and she has a little curl
             Right in the middle of her forehead;
           When she is good she is very, very good,
             And when she is bad she is horrid--"

said Dr. Carr, laughing. But Johnnie didn't laugh back. Her lip
trembled, and she said,--

"I'm not horrid _really_, am I?"

"Not a bit," replied her father; "you're only a little goose now and
then, and I'm such an old gander that I don't mind that a bit."

Johnnie smiled and was comforted. Her thoughts turned to the coming
visitor.

"Perhaps she'll be like the rich ladies in story-books," she said to
herself.

Next day Miss Inches came. Katy was an experienced housekeeper now, and
did not worry over coming guests as once she did. The house was always
in pleasant, home-like order; and though Debby and Alexander had
fulfilled Aunt Izzie's prediction by marrying one another, both stayed
on at Dr. Carr's and were as good and faithful as ever, so Katy had no
anxieties as to the dinners and breakfasts. It was late in the afternoon
when the visitor arrived. Fresh flowers filled the vases, for it was
early June, and the garden-beds were sweet with roses and lilies of the
valley. The older girls wore new summer muslins, and Johnnie in white,
her short curls tied back with a blue ribbon, looked unusually pretty
and delicate.

Miss Inches, a wide-awake, handsome woman, seemed much pleased to see
them all.

"So this is my name-child," she said, putting her arm about Johnnie.
"This is my little Joanna? You're the only child I have any share in,
Joanna; I hope we shall love each other very deeply."

Miss Inches' hand was large and white, with beautiful rings on the
fingers. Johnnie was flattered at being patted by such a hand, and
cuddled affectionately to the side of her name-mamma.

"What eyes she has!" murmured Miss Inches to Dr. Carr. She lowered her
voice, but Johnnie caught every word. "Such a lambent blue, and so full
of soul. She is quite different from the rest of your daughters, Dr.
Carr; don't you think so?"

"She has been ill recently, and is looking thin," replied the prosaic
Papa.

"Oh, it isn't _that_! There is something else,--hard to put into words,
but I feel it! You don't see it? Well, that only confirms a theory of
mine, that people are often blind to the qualities of their nearest
relations. We cannot get our own families into proper perspective. It
isn't possible."

These fine words were lost on Johnnie, but she understood that she was
pronounced nicer than the rest of the family. This pleased her: she
began to think that she should like Miss Inches very much indeed.

Dr. Carr was not so much pleased. The note from Miss Inches, over which
he and Katy had laughed, but which was not shown to the rest, had
prepared him for a visitor of rather high-flown ideas, but he did not
like having Johnnie singled out as the subject of this kind of praise.
However, he said to himself, "It doesn't matter. She means well, and
jolly little Johnnie won't be harmed by a few days of it."

Jolly little Johnnie would not have been harmed, but the pale,
sentimental Johnnie left behind by the recently departed intermittent
fever, decidedly _was_. Before Miss Inches had been four days in Burnet,
Johnnie adored her and followed her about like a shadow. Never had
anybody loved her as Miss Inches did, she thought, or discovered such
fine things in her character. Ten long years and a half had she lived
with Papa and the children, and not one of them had found out that her
eyes were full of soul, and an expression "of mingled mirth and
melancholy unusual in a childish face, and more like that of _Goethe's
Mignon_ than any thing else in the world of fiction!" Johnnie had never
heard of "_Mignon_," but it was delightful to be told that she resembled
her, and she made Miss Inches a present of the whole of her foolish
little heart on the spot.

"Oh, if Papa would but give you to me!" exclaimed Miss Inches one day.
"If only I could have you for my own, what a delight it would be! My
whole theory of training is so different,--you should never waste your
energies in house-work, my darling, (Johnnie had been dusting the
parlor); it is sheer waste, with an intelligence like yours lying fallow
and only waiting for the master's hand. Would you come, Johnnie, if
Papa consented? Inches Mills is a quiet place, but lovely. There are a
few bright minds in the neighborhood; we are near Boston, and not too
far from Concord. Such a pretty room as you should have, darling, fitted
up in blue and rose-buds, or--no, Morris green and Pompeian-red would be
prettier, perhaps. What a joy it would be to choose pictures for
it,--pictures, every one of which should be an impulse in the best Art
direction! And how you would revel in the garden, and in the fruit! My
strawberries are the finest I ever saw; I have two Alderney cows and
quantities of cream. Don't you think you could be happy to come and be
my own little Curly, if Papa would consent?"

"Yes, yes," said Johnnie eagerly. "And I could come home sometimes,
couldn't I?"

"Every year," replied Miss Inches. "We'll take such lovely journeys
together, Johnnie, and see all sorts of interesting places. Would you
like best to go to California or to Switzerland next summer? I think, on
the whole, Switzerland would be best. I want you to form a good French
accent at once, but, above all, to study German, the language of
_thought_. Then there is music. We might spend the winter at
_Stuttgard_--"

Decidedly Miss Inches was counting on her chicken before hatching it,
for Dr. Carr had yet to be consulted, and he was not a parent who
enjoyed interference with his nest or nestlings. When Miss Inches
attacked him on the subject, his first impulse was to whistle with
amazement. Next he laughed, and then he became almost angry. Miss Inches
talked very fast, describing the fine things she would do with Johnnie,
and for her; and Dr. Carr, having no chance to put in a word, listened
patiently, and watched his little girl, who was clinging to her new
friend and looking very eager and anxious. He saw that her heart was set
on being "adopted," and, wise man that he was, it occurred to him that
it might be well to grant her wish in part, and let her find out by
experiment what was really the best and happiest thing. So he did not
say "No" decidedly, as he at first meant, but took Johnnie on his knee,
and asked,--

"Well, Curly, so you want to leave Papa and Katy and Clover, and go away
to be Miss Inches' little girl, do you?"

"I'm coming home to see you every single summer," said Johnnie.

"Indeed! That will be nice for us," responded Dr. Carr cheerfully. "But
somehow I don't seem to feel as if I could quite make up my mind to give
my Curly Locks away. Perhaps in a year or two, when we are used to being
without her, I may feel differently. Suppose, instead, we make a
compromise."

"Yes," said Miss Inches, eagerly.

"Yes," put in Johnnie, who had not the least idea of what a compromise
might be.

"I can't _give_ away my little girl,--not yet,"--went on Dr. Carr
fondly. "But if Miss Inches likes I'll _lend_ her for a little while.
You may go home with Miss Inches, Johnnie, and stay four months,--to the
first of October, let us say." ("She'll miss two weeks' schooling, but
that's no great matter," thought Papa to himself.) "This will give you,
my dear lady, a chance to try the experiment of having a child in your
house. Perhaps you may not like it so well as you fancy. If you do, and
if Johnnie still prefers to remain with you, there will be time enough
then to talk over further plans. How will this answer?"

Johnnie was delighted, Miss Inches not so much so.

"Of course," she said, "it isn't so satisfactory to have the thing left
uncertain, because it retards the regular plan of development which I
have formed for Johnnie. However, I can allow for a parent's feelings,
and I thank you very much, Dr. Carr. I feel assured that, as you have
five other children, you will in time make up your mind to let me keep
Johnnie entirely as mine. It puts a new value into life,--this chance of
having an immortal intelligence placed in my hands to train. It will be
a real delight to do so, and I flatter myself the result will surprise
you all."

Dr. Carr's eyes twinkled wickedly, but he made Miss Inches the politest
of bows, and said: "You are very kind, I am sure, and I hope Johnnie
will be good and not give you much trouble. When would you wish her
visit to commence?"

"Oh--now, if you do not object. I should so enjoy taking her with me to
the Mammoth Cave, and afterward straight home to Massachusetts. You
would like to see the Cave and the eyeless fish, wouldn't you, darling?"

"Oh yes, Papa, yes!" cried Johnnie. Dr. Carr was rather taken aback, but
he made no objection, and Johnnie ran off to tell the rest of the family
the news of her good fortune.

Their dismay cannot be described. "I really do think that Papa is
crazy," said Clover that night; and though Katy scolded her for using
such an expression, her own confidence in his judgment was puzzled and
shaken. She comforted herself with a long letter to Cousin Helen,
telling her all about the affair. Elsie cried herself to sleep three
nights running, and the boys were furious.

"The _idea_ of such a thing," cried Dorry, flinging himself about, while
Phil put a tablespoonful of black pepper and two spools of thread into
his cannon, and announced that if Miss Inches dared to take Johnnie
outside the gate, he would shoot her dead, he would, just as sure as he
was alive!

In spite of this awful threat, Miss Inches persisted in her plan.
Johnnie's little trunk was packed by Clover and Katy, who watered its
contents with tears as they smoothed and folded the frocks and aprons,
which looked so like their Curly as to seem a part of herself,--their
Curly, who was so glad to leave them!

"Never mind the thick things," remarked Dr. Carr, as Katy came through
the hall with Johnnie's winter jacket on her arm. "Put in one warmish
dress for cool days, and leave the rest. They can be sent on _if_
Johnnie decides to stay."

Papa looked so droll and gave such a large wink at the word "if," that
Katy and Clover felt their hearts lighten surprisingly, and finished the
packing in better spirits. The good-by, however, was a sorry affair. The
girls cried; Dorry and Phil sniffed and looked fiercely at Miss Inches;
old Mary stood on the steps with her apron thrown over her head; and Dr.
Carr's face was so grave and sad that it quite frightened Johnnie. She
cried too, and clung to Katy. Almost she said, "I won't go," but she
thought of the eyeless fish, and didn't say it. The carriage drove off,
Miss Inches petted her, everything was new and exciting, and before long
she was happy again, only now and then a thought of home would come to
make her lips quiver and her eyes fill.

The wonderful Cave, with its vaults and galleries hung with glittering
crystals, its underground river and dark lake, was so like a fairy tale,
that Johnnie felt as if she _must_ go right back and tell the family at
home about it. She relieved her feelings by a long letter to Elsie,
which made them all laugh very much. In it she said, "Ellen Montgomery
didn't have any thing half so nice as the Cave, and Mamma Marion never
taps my lips." Miss Inches, it seemed, wished to be called "Mamma
Marion." Every mile of the journey was an enjoyment to Johnnie. Miss
Inches bought pretty presents for her wherever they stopped: altogether,
it was quite like being some little girl taking a beautiful excursion in
a story-book, instead of plain Johnnie Carr, and Johnnie felt that to be
an "adopted child" was every bit as nice as she had supposed, and even
nicer.

It was late in the evening when they reached Inches Mills, so nothing
could be seen of the house, except that it was big and had trees around
it. Johnnie went to sleep in a large bedroom with a huge double bed all
to herself, and felt very grown-up and important.

The next day was given to unpacking and seeing the grounds; after that,
Miss Inches said they must begin to lead a regular life, and Johnnie
must study. Johnnie had been to school all winter, and in the natural
course of things would have had holidays now. Mamma Marion, however,
declared that so long an idle time would not do at all.

"Education, my darling, is not a thing of periods," she explained. "It
should be like the air, absorbed, as it were, all the time, not like a
meal, eaten just so often in the day. This idea of teaching by paroxysms
is one of the fatal mistakes of the age."

So all that warm July Johnnie had French lessons and German, and lessons
in natural philosophy, beside studying English literature after a plan
of Miss Inches' own, which combined history and geography and geology,
with readings from various books, and accounted for the existence of
all the great geniuses of the world, as if they had been made after a
regular recipe,--something like this:--

                      TO MAKE A POET.

          Take a political situation, add a rocky soil, and
          the western slope of a great water-shed, pour into
          a mould and garnish with laurel leaves. It will be
          found delicious!

The "lambent blue" of Johnnie's eyes grew more lambent than ever as she
tried to make head and tail of this wonderful hash of people and facts.
I am afraid that Mamma Marion was disappointed in the intelligence of
her pupil, but Johnnie did her best, though she was rather aggrieved at
being obliged to study at all in summer, which at home was always
play-time. The children she knew were having a delightful vacation
there, and living out of doors from morning till night.

As the weeks went on she felt this more and more. Change of air was
making her rosy and fat, and with returning strength a good deal of the
old romping, hearty Johnnie came back; or would have come, had there
been anybody to romp with. But there was nobody, for Miss Inches
scarcely ever invited children to her house. They were brought up so
poorly she said. There was nothing inspiring in their contact. She
wanted Johnnie to be something quite different.

So Johnnie seldom saw anybody except "Mamma Marion" and her friends, who
came to drink tea and talk about "Protoplasm," and the "Higher Education
of Women," which wasn't at all interesting to poor Curly. She always sat
by, quietly and demurely, and Miss Inches hoped was listening and being
improved, but really she was thinking about something else, or longing
to climb a tree or have a good game of play with real boys and girls.
Once, in the middle of a tea-party, she stole upstairs and indulged in a
hearty cry all to herself, over the thought of a little house which she
and Dorry and Phil had built in Paradise the summer before; a house of
stumps and old boards, lined with moss, in which they had had _such_ a
good time.

Almost as soon as they got home, Miss Inches sent to Boston for papers
and furniture, and devoted her spare time to fitting up a room for her
adopted child. Johnnie was not allowed to see it till all was done, then
she was led triumphantly in. It was pretty--and queer--perhaps queerer
than pretty. The walls were green-gray, the carpet gray-green, the
furniture pale yellow, almost white, with brass handles and hinges, and
lines of dull red tiles set into the wood. Every picture on the walls
had a meaning, Miss Inches explained.

"Some of these I chose to strengthen your mind, Johnnie, dear," she
said. "These portraits, for example. Here are Luther, Mahomet, and
Theodore Parker, three of the great Protestants of the world. Life, to
be worthy, must be more or less of a protest always. I want you to
renumber that. This photograph is of Michael Angelo's Moses. I got you
that too, because it is so strong. I want you to be strong. Do you like
it?"

"I think it would be prettier without the curl-papers," faltered the
bewildered Johnnie.

"Curl-papers! My dear child, where are your eyes? Those are horns. He
wore horns as a law-giver."

"Yes, ma'am," said Johnnie, not daring to ask any more questions for
fear of making more mistakes.

"These splendid autotypes are from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in
Rome, the glory of the world," went on Miss Inches. "And here, Johnnie,
is the most precious of all. This I got expressly for you. It is an
education to have such a painting as that before your eyes. I rely very
much upon its influence on you."

The painting represented what seemed to be a grove of tall yellow-green
sea-weeds, waving against a strange purple sky. There was a path between
the stems of the sea-weeds, and up this path trotted a pig, rather soft
and smudgy about his edges, as if he were running a little into the
background. His quirly tail was smudgy also; and altogether it was more
like the ghost of a pig than a real animal, but Miss Inches said _that_
was the great beauty of the picture.

Johnnie didn't care much for the painted pig, but she liked him better
than the great Reformers, who struck her as grim and frightful; while
the very idea of going to sleep in the room with the horned Moses scared
her almost to death. It preyed on her mind all day; and at night, after
Johnnie had gone to bed, Miss Inches, passing the door, heard a little
sob, half strangled by the pillows. She went in.

"What _is_ the matter?" she cried.

"It's that awful man with horns," gasped Johnnie, taking her head out
from under the bedclothes. "I can't go to sleep, he frightens me so."

"Oh, my darling, what, _what_ weakness," cried Mamma Marion.

She was too kind, however, to persist in any plan which made Johnnie
unhappy, so Moses came down, and Johnnie was allowed to choose a picture
to fill his place. She selected a chromo of three little girls in a
swing, a dreadful thing, all blue and red and green, which Miss Inches
almost wept over. But it was a great comfort to Johnnie. I think it was
the chromo which put it into Mamma Marion's head that the course of
instruction chosen for her adopted child was perhaps a little above her
years. Soon after she surprised Johnnie by the gift of a doll, a boy
doll, dressed in a suit of Swedish gray, with pockets. In one hand the
doll carried a hammer, and under the other arm was tucked a small
portfolio.

"I like to make your sports a little instructive when I can," she said,
"so I have dressed this doll in the costume of Linnæus, the great
botanist. See what a nice little herbarium he has got under his arm.
There are twenty-four tiny specimens in it, with the Latin and English
names of each written underneath. If you could learn these perfectly,
Johnnie, it would give you a real start in botany, which is the most
beautiful of the sciences. Suppose you try. What will you name your
doll, darling?"

"I don't know," replied Johnnie, glaring at the wax-boy with very
hostile feelings.

"Linnæus? No, I don't quite like to give that name to a doll. Suppose,
Johnnie, we christen him _Hortus Siccus_. That's the Latin name for a
herbal, and will help you to remember it when you form one of your own.
Now take him and have a good play."

How was it possible to have a good play with a doll named _Hortus
Siccus_? Johnnie hated him, and could not conceal the fact. Miss Inches
was grieved and disappointed. But she said to herself, "Perhaps she is
just too old for dolls and just too young to care for pictures. It isn't
so easy to fix a child's mental position as I thought it would be. I
must try something else."

She really loved Johnnie and wished to make her happy, so the thought
occurred of giving her a child's party. "I don't approve of them," she
told her friends. "But perhaps it may be possible to combine some
instruction with the amusements, and Johnnie is _so_ pleased. Dear
little creature, she is only eleven, and small things are great at that
age. I suppose it is always so with youth."

Twenty children were asked to the party. They were to come at four, play
for two hours in the garden, then have supper, and afterward games in
the parlor.

Johnnie felt as if she had taken a dose of laughing-gas, at the sight of
twenty boys and girls all at once, real boys, real girls! How long it
was since she had seen any! She capered and jumped in a way which
astonished Miss Inches, and her high spirits so infected the rest that a
general romp set in, and the party grew noisy to an appalling degree.

"Oh, Johnnie dear, no more 'Tag,'" cried poor Mamma Marion, catching
her adopted child and wiping her hot face with a handkerchief. "It is
really too rude, such a game as that. It is only fit for boys."

"Oh, please!--please!--_please_!" entreated Johnnie. "It is splendid.
Papa always let us; he did indeed, he always did."

"I thought you were my child now, and anxious for better things than
tag," said Miss Inches gravely. Johnnie had to submit, but she pouted,
shrugged her shoulders, and looked crossly about her, in a way which
Mamma Marion had never seen before, and which annoyed her very much.

"Now it is time to go to supper," she announced. "Form yourselves into a
procession, children. Johnnie shall take this tambourine and Willy
Parker these castanets, and we will march in to the sound of music."

Johnnie liked to beat the tambourine very much, so her sulks gave place
at once to smiles. The boys and girls sorted themselves into couples,
Miss Inches took the head of the procession with an accordion, Willy
Parker clashed the castanets as well as he could, and they all marched
into the house. The table was beautifully spread with flowers and grapes
and pretty china. Johnnie took the head, Willy the foot, and Dinah the
housemaid helped them all round to sliced peaches and cream.

Miss Inches meanwhile sat down in the corner of the room and drew a
little table full of books near her. As soon as they were all served,
she began,--

"Now, dear children, while you eat, I will read aloud a little. I should
like to think that each one of you carried away one thought at least
from this entertainment,--a thought which would stay by you, and be, as
it were, seed-grain for other thoughts in years to come. First, I will
read 'Abou Ben Adhem,' by Leigh Hunt, an English poet."

The children listened quietly to Abou Ben Adhem, but when Miss Inches
opened another book and began to read sentences from Emerson, a deep
gloom fell upon the party. Willy Parker kicked his neighbor and made a
face. Lucy Hooper and Grace Sherwood whispered behind their napkins, and
got to laughing till they both choked. Johnnie's cross feelings came
back; she felt as if the party was being spoiled, and she wanted to cry.
A low buzz of whispers, broken by titters, went round the table, and
through it all Miss Inches' voice sounded solemn and distinct, as she
slowly read one passage after another, pausing between each to let the
meaning sink properly into the youthful mind.

Altogether the supper was a failure, in spite of peaches and cream and a
delicious cake full of plums and citron. When it was over they went into
the parlor to play. The game of "Twenty Questions" was the first one
chosen. Miss Inches played too. The word she suggested was "iconoclast."

"We don't know what it means," objected the children.

"Oh, don't you, dears? It means a breaker of idols. However, if you are
not familiar with it we will choose something else. How would 'Michael
Angelo' do?"

"But we never heard any thing about him."

Miss Inches was shocked at this, and began a little art-lecture on the
spot, in the midst of which Willy Parker broke in with, "I've thought of
a word,--'hash'?"

"Oh, yes! Capital! Hash is a splendid word!" chorussed the others, and
poor Miss Inches, who had only got as far as Michael Angelo's fourteenth
year, found that no one was listening, and stopped abruptly. Hash seemed
to her a vulgar word for the children to choose, but there was no help
for it, and she resigned herself.

Johnnie thought hash an excellent word. It was so funny when Lucy asked
whether the thing chosen was animal, vegetable, or mineral? and Willy
replied, "All three," for he explained in a whisper, there was always
salt in hash, and salt was a mineral. "Have you all seen it?"
questioned Lucy. "Lots of times," shouted the children, and there was
much laughing. After "Twenty Questions," they played "Sim says
wiggle-waggle," and after that, "Hunt the Slipper." Poor, kind, puzzled
Miss Inches was relieved when they went away, for it seemed to her that
their games were all noisy and a fearful waste of time. She resolved
that she would never give Johnnie any more parties; they upset the child
completely, and demoralized her mind.

Johnnie _was_ upset. After the party she was never so studious or so
docile as she had been before. The little taste of play made her dislike
work, and set her to longing after the home-life where play and work
were mixed with each other as a matter of course. She began to think
that it would be only pleasant to make up her bed, or dust a room again,
and she pined for the old nursery, for Phil's whistle, for Elsie and the
paper-dolls, and to feel Katy's arms round her once more. Her letters
showed the growing home-sickness. Dr. Carr felt that the experiment had
lasted long enough. So he discovered that he had business in Boston, and
one fine September day, as Johnnie was forlornly poring over her lesson
in moral philosophy, the door opened and in came Papa. Such a shriek as
she gave! Miss Inches happened to be out, and they had the house to
themselves for a while.

"So you are glad to see me?" said Papa, when Johnnie had dried her eyes
after the violent fit of crying which was his welcome, and had raised
her head from his shoulder. His own eyes were a little moist, but he
spoke gaily.

"Oh, Papa, _so_ glad! I was just longing for you to come. How did it
happen?"

"I had business in this part of the world, and I thought you might be
wanting your winter clothes."

Johnnie's face fell.

"_Must_ I stay all winter?" she said in a trembling voice. "Aren't you
going to take me home?"

"But I thought you wanted to be 'adopted,' and to go to Europe, and have
all sorts of fine things happen to you."

"Oh, Papa, don't tease me. Mamma Marion is ever so kind, but I want to
come back and be your little girl again. Please let me. If you don't, I
shall _die_--" and Johnnie wrung her hands.

"We'll see about it," said Dr. Carr. "Don't die, but kiss me and wash
your face. It won't do for Miss Inches to come home and find you with
those impolite red rims to your eyes."

"Come upstairs, too, and see my room, while I wash 'em," pleaded
Johnnie.

All the time that Johnnie was bathing her eyes, Papa walked leisurely
about looking at the pictures. His mouth wore a furtive smile.

"This is a sweet thing," he observed, "this one with the pickled
asparagus and the donkey, or is it a cat?"

"Papa! it's a pig!"

Then they both laughed.

I think there was a little bit of relief mixed with Miss Inches'
disappointment at hearing of Johnnie's decision. The child of theory was
a delightful thing to have in the house, but this real child, with moods
and tempers and a will of her own, who preferred chromos to Raphael, and
pined after "tag," tried her considerably. They parted, however, most
affectionately.

"Good-by, dear Mamma Marion," whispered Johnnie. "You've been just as
good as good to me, and I love you so much,--but you know I am _used_ to
the girls and Papa."

"Yes, dear, I know. You're to come back often, Papa says, and I shall
call you my girl always." So, with kisses, they separated, and Miss
Inches went back to her old life, feeling that it was rather comfortable
not to be any longer responsible for a "young intelligence," and that
she should never envy mammas with big families of children again, as
once she had done.

"So we've got our Curly Locks back," said Katy, fondly stroking
Johnnie's hair, the night after the travellers' return. "And you'll
never go away from us any more, will you?"

"Never, never, never!" protested Johnnie, emphasizing each word by a
kiss.

"Not even to be adopted, travel in Europe, or speak Litchfield Co.
French?" put in naughty Clover.

"No. I've been adopted once, and that's enough. Now I'm going to be
Papa's little girl always, and when the rest of you get married I shall
stay at home and keep house for him."

"That's right," said Dr. Carr.

GOOSEY, GOOSEY GANDER.

"BUT why must I go to bed? It isn't time, and I'm not sleepy yet,"
pleaded Dickie, holding fast by the side of the door.

"Now, Dickie, don't be naughty. It's time because I say that it's time."

"Papa never tells me it's time when it's light like this," argued
Dickie. "_He_ doesn't ever send me to bed till seven o'clock. I'm not
going till it's a great deal darker than this. So there, Mally Spence."

"Oh, yes, you are, Dickie darling," replied Mally coaxingly. "The reason
it's light is because the days are so long now. It's quite late
really,--almost seven o'clock,--that is," she added hastily, "it's past
six (two minutes past!), and sister wants to put Dickie to bed, because
she's going to take tea with Jane Foster, and unless Dick is safe and
sound she can't go. Dickie would be sorry to make sister lose her
pleasure, wouldn't he?"

"I wiss you didn't want me to go," urged Dick, but he was a
sweet-tempered little soul, so he yielded to Mally's gentle pull, and
suffered her to lead him in-doors. Upstairs they went, past Mally's
room, Papa's,--up another flight of stairs, and into the attic chamber
where Dick slept alone. It was a tiny chamber. The ceiling was low, and
the walls sloped inward like the sides of a tent. It would have been too
small to hold a grown person comfortably, but there was room in plenty
for Dickie's bed, one chair, and the chest of drawers which held his
clothes and toys. One narrow window lighted it, opening toward the West.
On the white plastered wall beside it, lay a window-shaped patch of warm
pink light. The light was reflected from the sunset. Dickie had seen
this light come and go very often. He liked to have it there; it was so
pretty, he thought.

Malvina undressed him. She did not talk as much as usual, for her head
was full of the tea-party, and she was in a hurry to get through and be
off. Dickie, however, was not the least in a hurry. Slowly he raised one
foot, then the other, to have his shoes untied, slowly turned himself
that Mally might unfasten his apron. All the time he talked. Mally
thought she had never known him ask so many questions, or take so much
time about every thing.

"What makes the wall pink?" he said. "It never is 'cept just at
bedtime."

"It's the sun."

"Why doesn't the sun make it that color always?"

"The sun is setting now. He is not setting always."

"That's an improper word. You mustn't say it."

"What's an improper word?"

"Papa _said_, when I said 'setting on the door-steps,' that it wasn't
proper to say that. He said I must say _sitting_ on the door steps."

"That isn't the same thing, Goosey Gander," cried Mally laughing. "The
sun sets and little boys sit."

"I'm not a goosey gander," responded Dickie. "And Papa _said_ it wasn't
proper."

"Never mind," said Mally, whipping on his night-gown: "you're a darling,
if you are a goosey. Now say your prayers nicely."

"Yes," replied Dick, dreamily. He knelt down and began his usual prayer.
"Please, God, bless Papa and Mally and Gwandmamma and--" "make Dick a
good boy" should have come next, but his thoughts wandered. "Why don't
the sun sit as well as little boys?" he asked.

"Oh, Dickie, Dickie!" cried the scandalized Malvina. "You're saying your
prayers, you know. Good children don't stop to ask questions when
they're saying their prayers."

Dickie felt rebuked. He finished the little prayer quickly. Mally lifted
him into bed. "It's so warm that you won't want this," she said, folding
back the blanket. Then she stooped to kiss him.

"Tell me a story before you go," pleaded Dickie, holding her tight.

"Oh, not to-night, darling, because I shall be late to Jane's if I do."
She kissed him hastily.

"I don't think it's nice at all to go to bed when the sun hasn't sit,
and I'm not sleepy a bit, and there isn't nothing to play with,"
remarked Dick, plaintively.

"You'll fall asleep in a minute or two, Goosey, then you won't want any
thing to play with," said Mally, hurrying away.

"I'm _not_ a goosey," shouted Dick after her. Ten minutes later, as she
was tying her bonnet strings, she heard him calling from the top of the
stairs.

"What is it, Dickie?"

"I'm not a goose. Goosies has feathers. They say 'quack.'"

"You're the kind that hasn't feathers and doesn't say quack," replied
Mally from below. "No, darling, you're not a goose; you're Mally's good
boy. Now, run back to bed."

"Yes, I will," replied Dick, satisfied by this concession. He climbed
into bed again, and lay watching the pink patch on the wall. Yellow bars
began to appear and to dance in the midst of the pink.

"Like teeny-weeney little ladders," thought Dick. There was a ladder
outside his door, at top of which was a scuttle opening on to the roof.
Dickie turned his head to look at the ladder. The scuttle-door stood
open; from above, the pink light streamed in and lay on the rungs of the
ladder.

"I did go up that ladder once," soliloquized Dick. "Papa took me. It was
velly nice up there. I wiss Papa would take me again. Mally, she said it
was dangewous. I wonder why she said it was dangewous? Mally's a very
funny girl, I think. She didn't ought to put me to bed so early. I can't
go to sleep at all. Perhaps I sha'n't ever go to sleep, not till
morning,--then she'd feel sorry.

"If I was a bird I could climb little bits of ladders like that," was
his next reflection. "Or a fly. I'd like to be a fly, and eat sugar, and
say b-u-z-z-z all day long. Only then perhaps some little boy would get
me into the corner of the window and squeeze me all up tight with his
fum." Dickie cast a rueful look at his own guilty thumb as he thought
this. "I wouldn't like that! But I'd like very much indeed to buzz and
tickle Mally's nose when she was twying to sew. She'd slap and slap,
and not hit me, and I'd buzz and tickle. How I'd laugh! But perhaps
flies don't know how to laugh, only just to buzz.

                   "'Pretty, curious, buzzy fly.'

That's what my book says."

The pink glow was all gone now, and Dick shifted his position.

"I _wiss_ I could go to sleep," he thought. "It isn't nice at all to be
up here and not have any playthings. Mally's gone, else she'd get me
something to amoose myself with. I'd like my dwum best. It's under the
hall table, I guess. P'waps if I went down I could get it."

As this idea crossed his mind, Dickie popped quickly out of bed. The
floor felt cool and pleasant to his bare little feet as he crossed to
the door. He had almost reached the head of the stairs when, looking up,
something so pretty met his eyes that he stopped to admire. It was a
star, shining against the pure sky like a twinkling silver lamp. It
seemed to beckon, and the ladder to lead straight up to it. Almost
without stopping to think, Dickie put his foot on the first rung and
climbed nimbly to the top of the ladder. The star was just as much out
of reach when he got there as it had been before, but there were other
beautiful sights close at hand which were well worth the trouble of
climbing after.

Miles and miles and miles of sky for one thing. It rose above Dickie's
head like a great blue dome pierced with pin-pricks of holes, through
which little points of bright light quivered and danced. Far away
against the sky appeared a church spire, like a long sharp finger
pointing to Heaven. One little star exactly above, seemed stuck on the
end of the spire. Dickie wondered if it hurt the star to be there. He
stepped out on to the roof and wandered about. The evening was warm and
soft. No dew fell. The shingles still kept the heat of the sun, and felt
pleasant and comfortable under his feet. By-and-by a splendid
rocker-shaped moon came from behind the sky's edge where she had been
hiding away, and sailed slowly upward. She was a great deal bigger than
the stars, but they didn't seem afraid of her in the least. Dickie
reflected that if he were a star he should hurry to get out of her way;
but the stars didn't mind the moon's being there at all, they kept their
places, and shone calmly on as they had done before she came.

He was standing, when the moon appeared, by the low railing which
guarded the edge of the roof. The railing was of a very desirable
height. Dickie could just rest his chin on top of it, which was nice.
Suddenly a loud "Maau-w!" resounded from above. Dickie jumped, and gave
his poor chin a knock against the railing. It couldn't be the moon,
could it? Moons didn't make noises like that.

He looked up. There, on the ridge pole of the next roof, sat a black
cat, big and terrible against the sky. "Ma-a-uw," said the cat again,
louder than before.

"Why, pussy, what's the matter?" cried Dick. His voice quavered a
little, but he tried to speak boldly. Pussy was displeased at the
question. She hissed, put up her back, swelled her tail to a puff, and
fled to a distant part of the roof, where, from some hidden ambush, Dick
could hear her scolding savagely.

"She's a cwoss cat, I guess," he remarked philosophically. "Why, this
chimney is warm," he cried, as his arm touched the bricks. "It's 'cause
there used to be a fire in there. But there isn't any smoke coming out.
I wonder if all the chimneys are warm too, like this one."

There was another chimney not far off, and Dick hastened to try the
experiment. To do this he was obliged to climb a railing, but it was low
and easy to get over. The second chimney was cold, but a little farther
on appeared a third, and Dick proceeded to climb another railing.

But before he reached this third chimney, a surprising and interesting
sight attracted his attention. This was a scuttle door just like the
one at home, standing open, with a ladder leading down into a garret
below.

Dick peered over the edge of the scuttle. There was no little chamber in
this attic like his at home. It was all an open space, crammed with
trunks, furniture, boxes, and barrels. He caught sight of a
rocking-horse standing in a corner; a rocking-horse with a blue saddle
on his wooden back, and a fierce bristling mane much in need of brush
and comb. Drawn by irresistible attraction, Dickie put, first one foot,
then the other, over the scuttle's edge, crept down the ladder, and in
another moment stood by the motionless steed. Thick dust lay on the
saddle, on the rockers, and on the stiffly stretched-out tail, from
which most of the red paint had been worn away. It was evidently a long
time since any little boy had mounted there, chirruped to the horse, and
ridden gloriously away, pursuing a fairy fox through imaginary fields.
The eye of the wooden horse was glazed and dim. Life had lost its
interest to the poor animal, turned out, as it were, to pasture as best
he might in the dull, silent garret.

Dickie patted the red neck, a timid, affectionate pat, but it startled
the horse a little, for he shook visibly, and swayed to and fro. There
was evidently some "go" left in him, in spite of his dejected expression
of countenance. The shabby stirrup hung at his side. Dickie could just
reach it with his foot. He seized the mane, and, pulling hard, clambered
into the saddle. Once there, reins in hand, he clucked and encouraged
the time-worn steed to his best paces. To and fro, to and fro they
swung, faster, slower, Dickie beating with his heels, the wooden horse
curveting and prancing. It was famous! The dull thud of the rockers
echoed through the garret, and somebody sitting in the room below raised
his head to listen to the strange sound.

This somebody was an old man with white hair and a gray, stern face, who
sat beside a table on which were paper and lighted candles. A letter
lay before him, but he was not reading it. When the sound of the rocking
began, he started and turned pale. A little boy once used to rock in
that way in the garret overhead, but it was long ago, and for many years
past the garret had been silent and deserted. "Harry's horse!" muttered
the old man with a look of fear as he heard the sound. He half rose from
his chair, then he sat down again. But soon the noise ceased. Dickie had
caught sight of another thing in the garret which interested him, and
had dismounted to examine it. The old man sank into his chair again with
a look of relief, muttering something about the wind.

The thing which Dickie had gone to examine was a little arm-chair
cushioned with red. It was just the size for him, and he seated himself
in it with a look of great satisfaction.

"I wiss this chair was mine," he said. "P'waps Mally'll let me take it
home if I ask her."

A noise below attracted his attention. He peeped over the balusters and
saw an elderly woman, with a candle in her hand, coming up from the
lower story. She went into a room at the foot of the attic stair,
leaving the door open. "Hester! Hester!" called a voice from below. The
woman came from the room and went down again. She did not take the
candle with her: Dick could see it shining through the open door.

Like a little moth attracted by a flame, Dick wandered down the stair in
the direction of the light. The candle was standing on the table in a
bedroom,--a pretty room, Dickie thought, though it did not seem as if
anybody could have lived in it lately. He didn't know why this idea came
into his mind, but it did. It was a girl's bedroom, for a small blue
dress hung on the wall, and on the bureau were brushes, combs, and
hair-pins. Beside the bureau was a wooden shelf full of books. A
bird-cage swung in the window, but there was no bird in it, and the seed
glass and water cup were empty. The narrow bed had a white coverlid and
a great white pillow. It looked all ready for somebody, but it was
years since the girl who once owned the room had slept there. The old
housekeeper, who still loved the girl, came every day to dust and smooth
and air and sweep. She kept all things in their places just as they used
to be in the former time, but she could not give to the room the air of
life which once it had, and, do what she would, it looked deserted
always--empty--and dreary.

On the chimney-piece were ranged a row of toys, plaster cats, barking
dogs, a Noah's ark, and an enormous woolly lamb. This last struck Dick
with admiration. He stood on tip-toe with his hands clasped behind his
back to examine it.

"Oh, dear," he sighed, "I wiss I had that lamb." Then he gave a jump,
for close to him, in a small chair, he saw what seemed to be a little
girl, staring straight at him.

It was a big, beautiful doll, in a dress of faded pink, and a pink hat
and feather. Dick had never seen such a fine lady before; she quite
fascinated him. He leaned gently forward and touched the waxen hand. It
was cold and clammy; Dick did not like the feel, and retreated. The
unwinking eyes of the doll followed him as he sidled away, and made him
uncomfortable.

In the opposite room the old man still sat with his letter before him.
The letter was from the girl who once played with the big doll and slept
in the smooth white bed. She was not a child now. Years before she had
left her father's house against his will, and in company with a person
he did not like. He had said then that he should never forgive her, and
till now she had not asked to be forgiven. It was a long time since he
had known any thing about her. Nobody ever mentioned her name in his
hearing, not even the old housekeeper who loved her still, and never
went to bed without praying that Miss Ellen might one day come back. Now
Ellen had written to her father. The letter lay on the table.

"I was wrong," she wrote, "but I have been punished. We have suffered
much. My husband is dead. I will not speak of him, for I know that his
name will anger you; but, father, I am alone, ill, and very poor. Can
you not forgive me now? Do not think of me as the wild, reckless girl
who disobeyed you and brought sorrow to your life. I am a weary,
sorrowful woman, longing, above all other things, to be pardoned before
I die,--to come home again to the house where all my happy years were
spent. Let me come, father. My little Hester, named after our dear
nurse, mine and Harry's, is a child whom you would love. She is like me
as I used to be, but far gentler and sweeter than I ever was. Let me put
her in your arms. Let me feel that I am forgiven for my great fault, and
I will bless you every day that I live. Dear father, say yes. Your
penitent ELLEN."

Two angels stood behind the old man as he read this letter. He did not
see them, but he heard their voices as first one and then the other bent
and whispered in his ear.

"Listen," murmured the white angel with radiant moonlit wings. "Listen.
You loved her once so dearly. You love her still. I know you do."

"No," breathed the darker angel. "You swore that you would not forgive
her. Keep your word. You always said that she would come back as soon as
she was poor or unhappy, or that scamp treated her badly. It makes no
difference in the facts. Let her suffer; it serves her right."

"Remember what a dear child she used to be," said the fair angel, "so
bright, so loving. How she used to dance about the house and sing; the
sun seemed to shine always when she came into the room. She loved you
truly then. Her little warm arms were always about your neck. She loves
you still."

"What is love worth," came the other voice, "when it deceives and hurts
and betrays? All these long years you have suffered. It is her turn
now."

"Remember that it was partly your fault," whispered the spirit of good.
"You were harsh and stern. You did not appeal to her love, but to her
obedience. She had a high spirit; you forgot that. And she was only
sixteen."

"Quite old enough to know better," urged the spirit of evil. "Remember
the hard life you have led ever since. The neighbors speak of you as a
stern, cruel man; the little children run away when you appear. Whose
fault is that? Hers. She ought to pay for it."

"Think of the innocent child who never did you wrong, and who suffers
too. Think of the dear Lord who forgives your sins. Pray to him. He will
help you to forgive her,"--urged the good angel, but in fainter tones,
for the black angel spoke louder, and thrust between with his fierce
voice.

"The thing is settled. Why talk of prayer or pardon? Let her go her
way."

As this last whisper reached his ear the old man raised his bent head. A
hard, vindictive look was in his eyes. He seized the letter and tore it
in two. "Alas! alas!" sighed the sweet angel, while the evil one
rejoiced and waved his dark wings in triumph.

It was at this moment that Dickie, attracted by the rustle of paper,
appeared at the door. His eyes were beginning to droop a little. He
rubbed them hard as he crossed the entry. The pit-pat of his bare feet
made no sound on the carpeted floor, so that the old man had no warning
of his presence till, turning, he saw the little night-gowned figure
standing motionless in the door-way.

He sprang from his chair and stretched out his hands. He tried to speak,
but no voice came at first; then in a hoarse whisper he
said,--"Harry--is it you? Ellen--"

Dickie, terrified, fled back into the hall as if shod with wings. In one
moment he was in the attic, up the ladder, on the roof. The old man ran
blindly after him.

"Come back, Ellen--come back!" he cried. "I will forgive you,--come
back to your poor old father, dear child." His foot slipped as he spoke.
It was at the stair-head. He fell forward heavily, and lump, bump, bump,
down stairs he tumbled, and landed heavily in the hall below.

Hester and the housemaid ran hastily from the kitchen at the sound of
the fall. When they saw the old man lying in a heap at the foot of the
stair, they were terribly frightened. Blood was on his face. He was
quite unconscious.

"He is dead. Mr. Kirton is dead!" cried the housemaid, wringing her
hands.

"No,--his heart beats," said Hester. "Run for Doctor Poster, Hannah, and
ask Richard Wallis to come at once and help me lift the poor old
gentleman."

Hannah flew to do this errand. A moment after, Mr. Kirton opened his
eyes.

"Where is Ellen?" he said. Then he shut them again. Hester glanced at
the torn letter, which through all his fall the old man had held
tightly clasped in his hand, and gave a loud cry.

"Miss Ellen, come back!" she exclaimed. "My own Miss Ellen. God has
heard my prayers."

When Mr. Kirton's senses returned, late in the night, he found himself
in his own bed. His head felt strangely; one arm was tied up in a queer
stiff bandage, so that he could not move it. A cloth wet with water lay
on his forehead. When he stirred and groaned, a hand lifted the cloth,
dipped it in ice-water, and put it back again fresh and cool. He looked
up. Some one was bending over him, some one with a face which he knew
and did not know. It puzzled him strangely. At last, a look of
recognition came into his eyes. "Ellen?" he said, in a tone of question.

"Yes, dear father, it is I."

"Why did you come dressed as a little child to frighten me? You are a
woman," he said wonderingly; "your hair is gray!"

"I did not come as a little child, father. I am an old woman now. I have
come to be your nurse."

"I don't understand," muttered the old man, but he asked no more, and
presently dropped asleep. Ellen watched him for a long time, then she
went across the hall to her old room, where Hester stood looking at a
little girl, who lay on the bed sleeping soundly, with the pink doll
hugged tight in her arms.

"She is just like yourself, Miss Ellen," said Hester, with joyful tears
in her eyes,--"just like your old self, with a thought more brown in the
hair. Ah! good times have begun again for my poor old master; the light
has come back to the house."

But neither Hester nor Ellen saw the white-robed angel, who bent over
the old man's bed with a face of immortal joy, and sang low songs of
peace to make sleep deep and healing. The dark spirit has fled away.

Meantime Dickie, unconscious messenger of Fate, scrambling easily over
the roofs, had gained his own room, and was comfortably tucked up in his
little bed. His dreams were of dolls, rocking-horses, black cats. So
soundly did he sleep, that, when morning came, Mally had to shake him
and call loudly in his ear before she could wake him up.

"Why, Dick!" she cried, "look at your night-gown. It's all over dust,
and there are one--two--three tears in the cotton. What _have_ you been
doing?"

But Dickie could not tell.

"I dweamed that I walked about on the woof," he said. "But I guess I
didn't weally, did I?"

LITTLE BO PEEP.

THE sun was setting at the end of an August day. Everybody was glad to
see the last of him, for the whole world felt scorched and hot,--the
ground, the houses,--even the ponds looked warm as they stretched in
the steaming distance. On the edge of the horizon the sun winked with a
red eye, as much as to say, "Don't flatter yourselves, I shall be back
again soon;" then he slowly sank out of sight. It was comforting to have
him go, if only for a little while. "Perhaps," thought the people, "a
thunder-storm or something may come along before morning, and cool him
off."

Little Mell Davis was as glad as anybody when the sun disappeared. It
had been a hard day. Her step-mother had spent it in making soap.
Soap-making is ill-smelling, uncomfortable work at all times, and
especially in August. Mrs. Davis had been cross and fractious, had
scolded a great deal, and found many little jobs for Mell to do in
addition to her usual tasks of dish-washing, table-setting, and looking
after the children. Mell was tired of the heat; tired of the smell of
soap, of being lectured; and when supper was over was very glad to sit
at peace on the door-steps and read her favorite book, a tattered copy
of the Fairy Tales. Soon she forgot the trials of the day. "Once upon a
time there lived a beautiful Princess," she read, but just then came a
sharp call. "Mell, Mell, you tiresome girl, see what Tommy is about;"
and Mrs. Davis, dashing past, snatched Tommy away from the pump-handle,
which he was plying vigorously for the benefit of his small sisters, who
stood in a row under the spout, all dripping wet. Tommy was wetter
still, having impartially pumped on himself first of all. Frocks,
aprons, jacket, all were soaked, shoes and stockings were drenched, the
long pig tails of the girls streamed large drops, as if they had been
little rusty-colored water-pipes.

"Look at that!" cried Mrs. Davis, exhibiting the half-drowned brood.
"You might as well be deaf and blind, Mell, for any care you take of
'em. Give you a silly book to read, and the children might perish before
your eyes for all you'd notice. Look at Isaphine, and Gabella Sarah.
Little lambs,--as likely as not they've taken their deaths. It shan't
happen again, though. Give me that book--" And, snatching Mell's
treasure from her hands, Mrs. Davis flung it into the fire. It flamed,
shrivelled: the White Cat, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast,--all, all
were turned in one moment into a heap of unreadable ashes! Mell gave one
clutch, one scream; then she stood quite still, with a hard, vindictive
look on her face, which so provoked her step-mother that she gave her a
slap as she hurried the children upstairs. Mrs. Davis did not often slap
Mell. "I punish my own children," she would say, "not other people's."
"Other people's children" meant poor Mell.

It was not a very happy home, this of the Davis's. Mell's father was
captain of a whaler, and almost always at sea. It was three years now
since he sailed on his last voyage. No word had come from him for a
great many months, and his wife was growing anxious. This did not
sweeten her temper, for in case he never returned, Mell's would be
another back to clothe, another mouth to fill, when food, perhaps, would
not be easily come by. Mell was not anxious about her father. She was
used to having him absent. In fact, she seldom thought of him one way or
another. If Mrs. Davis had been kinder, and had given her more time to
read the Fairy Tales, she would have been quite a happy little girl, for
she lived in dreams, and it did not take much to content her. Half her
time was spent in a sort of inward play which never came out in words.
Sometimes in these plays she was a Princess with a gold crown, and a
delightful Prince making love to her all day long. Sometimes she kept a
candy-shop, and lived entirely on sugar-almonds and sassafras-stick.
These plays were so real to her mind that it seemed as if they _must_
some day come true. Her step-mother and the children did not often
figure in them, though once in a while she made believe that they were
all changed into agreeable people, and shared her good luck. There was
one thing in the house, however, which invariably took part in her
visions. This was a large wooden chest with brass handles which stood
upstairs in Mrs. Davis's room, and was always kept locked.

Mell had never seen the inside of this chest but once. Then she caught
glimpses of a red shawl, of some coral beads in a box, and of various
interesting looking bundles tied up in paper. "How beautiful!" she had
cried out eagerly, whereupon Mrs. Davis had closed the lid with a snap,
and locked it, looking quite vexed. "What is it? Are all those lovely
things yours?" asked Mell, and she had been bidden to hold her tongue,
and see if the kitchen fire didn't need another stick of wood. It was
two years since this happened. Mell had never seen the lid raised since,
but every day she had played about the big chest and its contents.

Sometimes she played that the chest belonged to the beautiful Princess,
and was full of her clothes and jewels. Sometimes a fairy lived there,
who popped out, wand in hand, and made things over to Mell's liking.
Again, Mell played that she locked her step-mother up into the chest,
and refused to release her till she promised never, never again, so long
as she lived, to scold about any thing. Mrs. Davis would have been very
vexed had she known about these plays. It made her angry if Mell so much
as glanced at the chest. "There you are again, peeping, peeping," she
would cry, and drive Mell before her downstairs.

So this evening, after the burning of the book, Mell's sore and angry
fancies flew as usual to the chest. "It's so big," she thought, "that
all the children could get into it. I'll play that a wicked enchanter
came and flew away with mother, and never let her come back. Then I
should have to take care of the children; and I'd get somebody to nail
some boards, so as to make five dear little cubby-houses inside the
chest. I'd put Tommy in one, Isaphine in another, Arabella Jane in
another, Belinda in another, and Gabella Sarah in another. Then I'd
shut the lid down and fasten it, and wouldn't I have a good time! When
dinner was ready I'd fetch a plate and spoon, feed 'em all round, and
shut 'em up again. It would be just the same when I washed their faces;
I'd just take a wet cloth and do 'em all with a couple of scrubs. They
couldn't get into mischief I suppose in there. Yet I don't know. Tommy
is so bad that he would if he could. Let me see,--what could he do? If
he had a gimlet he'd bore holes in the boards, and stick pins through to
make the others cry. I must be sure to see if he has any gimlets in his
pocket before I put him in. Oh, dear, I hope I shan't forget!"

Mell was so absorbed in these visions that she did not hear the gate
open, and when a hand was suddenly laid on her shoulder she gave a
little cry and a great jump. A tall man had come in, and was standing
close to her.

"Does Mrs. Captain Davis live here?" asked the tall man.

"Yes," said Mell, staring at him with her big eyes.

"Is she to home?"

"Yes," said Mell again. "She's in there," pointing to the kitchen.

The tall man stepped over Mell, and went in. Mell heard the sound of
voices, and grew curious. She peeped in at the door. Her step-mother was
folding a letter. She looked vexed about something.

"What time shall you start?" she said.

"Half-past five," replied the man. "I've my hands to pay at ten, and the
weather's so hot it's best to get off early."

"I suppose I must go," went on Mrs. Davis, "though I'd rather be whipped
than do it. You can stop if you've a mind to: I'll be ready."

"Very well," said the man. "You haven't got a drink of cider in the
house, have you? This dust has made me as dry as a chip."

"Mell, run down cellar and fetch some," said Mrs. Davis. "It was good
cider once, but I'm afraid it's pretty hard now." She bustled about;
brought doughnuts and a pitcher of water. The man drank a glass of the
sour cider and went away. Mrs. Davis sat awhile thinking. Then she
turned sharply on Mell.

"I've got to go from home to-morrow on business," she said. "Perhaps I
shall be back by tea-time, and perhaps I sha'n't. If there was anybody I
could get to leave the house with I would, but there isn't anybody. Now,
listen to me, Mell Davis. Don't you open a book to-morrow, not once; but
keep your eyes on the children, and see that they don't get into
mischief. If they do, I shall know who to thank for it. I'll make a
batch of biscuit to-night before I go to bed; there's a pie in the
cupboard, and some cold pork, and you can boil potatoes for the
children's breakfast and for dinner. Are you listening?"

"Yes'm," replied Mell.

"See that the children have their faces and hands washed," went on her
step-mother. "Oh, dear, if you were a different kind of girl how much
easier would it be! I wish your father would come home and look after
his own affairs, instead of my having to leave things at sixes and
sevens and go running round the country hunting up his sick relations
for him."

"Is it grandmother who is sick?" asked Mell timidly. She had never seen
her grandmother, but she had played about her very often.

"No," snapped Mrs. Davis. "It's your Uncle Peter. Don't ask questions;
it's none of your business who's sick. Mind you strain the milk the
first thing to-morrow, and wring out the dishcloth when you're through
with it. Oh, dear, to think that I should have to go!"

Mell crept to bed. She was so very tired that it seemed just one moment
before Mrs. Davis was shaking her arm, and calling her to get up at
once, for it was five o'clock. Slowly she unclosed her sleepy eyes. Sure
enough, the night was gone. A fiery red bar in the East showed that the
sun too was getting out of bed, and making ready for a hot day's work.
Mell rubbed her eyes. She wished that it was all a dream, from which she
had waked only to fall asleep again. But it was no use playing at dreams
with Mrs. Davis standing by.

Mrs. Davis was by no means in a humor for play. People rarely are at
five in the morning. She rushed about the house like a whirlwind, giving
Mell directions, and scolding her in advance for all the wrong things
she was going to do, till the poor child was completely stunned and
confused. By and by the tall man appeared with his wagon. Mrs. Davis got
in and drove away, ordering and lecturing till the last moment. "What's
the use of telling, for you're sure to get it all wrong," were her last
words, and Mell thought so too.

She walked back to the house feeling stupid and unhappy. But the quiet
did her good, and as gradually she realized that her step-mother was
actually gone,--gone for the whole day,--her spirits revived, and she
began to smile and sing softly to herself. Very few little girls of
twelve would, I think, have managed better than Mell did for the first
half of that morning.

First she got breakfast, only bread and milk and baked potatoes, but
there is a wrong as well as a right way with even such simple things,
and Mell really did all very cleverly. She swept the kitchen, strained
the milk, wound the clock. Then, as a sound of twittering voices began
above, she ran up to the children, washed and dressed, braided the red
pigtails, and got them downstairs successfully, with only one fight
between Tommy and Isaphine, and a roaring fit from Arabella Jane, who
was a tearful child. After breakfast, while the little ones played on
the door-steps, she tidied the room, mended the fire, washed plates and
cups, and put them away in the cupboard, wrung out the dishcloth
according to orders, and hung it on its nail. When this was finished she
looked about with pride. The children were unusually peaceful;
altogether, the day promised well. "Mother'll not say that I'm a
good-for-nothing girl _this_ time," thought Mell, and tried to recollect
what should be done next.

The kerosene can caught her eye.

"I'll clean the lamp," she said.

She had never cleaned the lamp before, but had seen her step-mother do
it very often. First, she took the lamp-scissors from the table drawer
and cut the wick, rather jaggedly, but Mell did not know that. Then she
tipped the can to fill the lamp. Here the misfortunes of the day began;
for the can slipped, and some of the oil was spilled on the floor. This
terrified Mell, for that kitchen-floor was the idol of Mrs. Davis's
heart. It was scrubbed every day, and kept as white as snow. Mell knew
that her step-mother's eyes would be keen as Blue Beard's to detect a
spot; and, with all the energy of despair, she rubbed and scoured with
soap and hot water. It was all in vain. The spot would not come out.

"I'll put a chair there," thought Mell. "Then perhaps she won't see it
just at first."

"I want that scissors," cried Tommy from the door.

"You can't have it," replied Mell, hurrying them into the drawer. "It's
a bad scissors, Tommy, all oily and dirty. Nice little boys don't want
to play with such dirty scissors as that."

"Yes, they do," whined Tommy, quite unconvinced.

"Now, children," continued Mell, "I'm going upstairs to make the beds.
You must play just here, and not go outside the gate till I come down
again. I shall be at the window, and see you all the time. Will you
promise to be good and do as I tell you?"

"Es," lisped Gabella Sarah.

"Es," said Isaphine.

"Yes, yes," clamored the others, headed by Tommy, who was a child of
promise if ever there was one. All the time his eyes were fixed on the
table drawer!

Mell went upstairs. First into the children's room, then into her own.
She put her head out of the window once or twice. The children were
playing quietly; Tommy had gone in for something, they said. Last of
all, Mell went to her step-mother's room. She had just begun to smooth
the bed, when an astonishing sight caught her eyes. _The key was in the
lock of the big chest!_

Yes, actually, the fairy treasury, home of so many fancies, was left
unlocked! How Mrs. Davis came to do so careless a thing will never be
known, but that she had done so was a fact.

Mell thought at first that her eyes deceived her. She stole across the
room and touched the key timidly with her forefinger to make sure. Then
she lifted the lid a little way and let it fall again, looking over her
shoulder as if fearing to hear a sharp voice from the stairs. Next,
grown bolder, she opened the lid wide. There lay the red shawl, just as
she remembered it, the coral beads in their lidless box, the blue paper
parcels, and, forgetting all consequences in a rapture of curiosity,
Mell sat down on the floor, lifted out the red shawl, tied the coral
beads round her neck, and plunged boldly into the contents of the big
chest.

Such a delightful chest as it proved to be! Mell thought it a great deal
better than any fairy tale, as one by one she lifted out and handled the
things which it contained. First and most beautiful was a parasol. It
was covered with faded pink silk trimmed with fringe, and had a long
white handle ending in a curved hook. Mell had never seen a parasol so
fine. She opened it, shut it, opened it again; she held it over her head
and went to the glass to see the effect. It was gorgeous, it was like
the parasols of Fairy-land, Mell thought. She laid it on the floor close
beside her, that she might see it all the while she explored the chest.

Below the parasol was a big paper box. Mell lifted the lid. A muff and
tippet lay inside, made of yellow and brown fur like the back of a
tortoise-shell cat. These were beautiful, too. Then came rolls of
calico and woollen pieces, some of which were very pretty, and would
make nice doll's dresses, Mell thought.

A newspaper parcel next claimed her attention. It held an old-fashioned
work-bag made of melon seeds strung on wire, and lined with green. Mell
admired this exceedingly, and pinned it to her waist. Then she found a
fan of white feathers with pink sticks. This was most charming of all.
Mell fanned herself a long time. She could not bear to put it away.
Princesses, she thought, must use fans like that. On the paper which
wrapped the fan was something written in pencil. Mell spelled it out.
"For my little Melicent" was what the writing said.

Was the fan really hers? Perhaps the parasol was hers too, the coral
beads, the muff and tippet! All sorts of delightful possibilities
whirled through her brain, as she tossed and tumbled the parcels in the
chest out on to the floor. More bundles of pieces, some
knitting-needles, an old-fashioned pair of bellows (Mell did not know
what these were), a book or two, a package of snuff, which flew up into
her face and made her sneeze. Then an overcoat and some men's clothes
folded smoothly. Mell did not care for the overcoat, but there were two
dresses pinned in towels which delighted her. One was purple muslin, the
other faded blue silk; and again she found her own name pinned on the
towel,--"For my little Mell." A faint pleasant odor came from the folds
of the blue silk dress. Mell searched the pocket, and found there a
Tonquin bean, screwed up in a bit of paper. It was the Tonquin bean
which had made the dress smell so pleasantly. Mell pressed the folds
close to her nose. She was fond of perfumes, and this seemed to her the
most delicious thing she ever smelt.

Suddenly the clock downstairs struck something very long, and Mell,
waking up as it were, recollected that it was a good while since she had
heard any sounds from the children in the yard. She jumped up and ran
to the window. No children were there.

"Children, children, where are you?" she called; but nobody answered.

"Tiresome little things," thought Mell. "They've gone round to the pump
again. I must hurry, or they will be all sopping wet." She seized the
parasol, which she could not bear to part with, and, leaving the other
things on the floor, ran downstairs. The red shawl, which had been lying
in her lap, trailed after her as far as the kitchen, and then fell, but
Mell did not notice it.

"What!" she cried, looking at the clock, "noon already! Why, where has
the morning gone to?"

Where had the children gone to? was another question. Back yard, side
yard, front yard, cellar, shed, Mell searched. There were no small
figures ranged about the pump, no voices replied to her calls. Mell ran
to the gate. She strained her eyes down the road, this way, that way;
not a sign of the little flock was visible in any direction.

Now Mell _was_ frightened. "What _will_ mother say?" she thought, and
began to run distractedly along the road, crying and sobbing as she
went, and telling herself that it wasn't her fault, that she only went
upstairs to make the beds,--but here her conscience gave a great prick.
It was but ten o'clock when she went upstairs to make the beds!

"Oh, dear!" she sobbed. "If only Tommy isn't drowned!" Drowning came
into her head first, because her step-mother was always in an agony
about the pond. The pond was a mile off at least, but Mrs. Davis never
let the children even look that way if she could help it.

Toward the pond poor Mell bent her way; for she thought as Tommy had
been strictly forbidden to go there, it was probably the very road he
had taken. The sun beat on her head and she put up the parasol, which
through all her trouble she had grasped firmly in her hand. Even under
these dreadful circumstances, with the children lost, and the certainty
of her step-mother's wrath before her, there was joy in carrying a
parasol like that.

By and by she met a farmer with a yoke of oxen.

"Oh, please," said Mell, "have you seen five children going this
way,--four girls and one little boy?"

The farmer hummed and hawed. "I did see some children," he said at last.
"It was a good piece back, nearly an hour ago, I reckon. They was making
for the pond?"

"Oh, dear!" sighed Mell. She thanked the farmer, and ran on faster than
ever.

"Have you passed any children on this road?" she demanded of a boy with
a wheelbarrow, who was the next person she met.

"Boys or girls?"

"One boy and four girls."

"Do they belong to you?"

"Yes, they're my brothers and sisters," said Mell. "Where did you see
them?"

"Haven't seen 'em," replied the boy. He grinned as he spoke, seized his
barrow, and wheeled rapidly away.

Mell's tears broke forth afresh. What a horrid boy!

The pond was very near now. It was a large pond. There were hills on one
side of it; on the other the shore was low, and covered with thick
bushes. In and out among these bushes went Mell, hunting for her lost
flock. It was green and shady. Flowers grew here and there; bright
berries hung on the boughs above her head; birds sang; a saucy squirrel
ran to the end of a branch, and chippered to her as she passed. But Mell
saw none of these things. She was too anxious and unhappy to enjoy what
on any other day would have been a great pleasure; and she passed the
flowers, the berries, and the chattering squirrel unheeded by.

No signs of the children appeared, till at last, in a marshy place, a
small shoe was seen sticking in the mud. Belinda's shoe! Mell knew it
in a minute.

She picked up the shoe, wiped the mud from it with a tuft of dried
grass, and, carrying it in her hand, went forward. She was on the track
now, and here and there prints of small feet in the earth guided her.
She called "Tommy! Isaphine! Belinda!" but no answer came. They were
either hidden cleverly, or else they had wandered a longer distance than
seemed possible in so short a time.

Suddenly Mell gave a shriek and a jump. There on the path before her lay
a snake, or what looked like one. It did not move. Mell grew bold and
went nearer. Alas! alas! it was not a snake. It was a pigtail of braided
hair,--Isaphine's hair: the red color was unmistakable. She seized it. A
smell of kerosene met her nose. Oh that Tommy!

With the pigtail coiled inside of the lost shoe, Mell ran on. She was
passing a thicket of sassafras bushes, when a sound of crying met her
ears. Instantly she stopped, and, parting the bushes with her hands,
peered in. There they were, sitting in a little circle close
together,--Arabella and Gabella Sarah fast asleep, with their heads in
Belinda's lap; Isaphine crying; Tommy sitting a little apart, an evil
smile on his face, in his hand a pair of scissors!

"You naughty, naughty, naughty boy," screamed Mell, flinging herself
upon him.

With a howl of terror, Tommy started up and prepared to flee. Mell
caught and held him tight. Something flew from his lap and fell to the
ground. Alas! alas! three more pigtails. Mell looked at the children.
Each little head was cropped close. What _would_ mother say?

"He cut off my hair," sobbed Isaphine.

"So did he cut mine," whined Belinda. "He took those nassy scissors you
told him not to take, and he cut off all our hairs. Boo-hoo! boo-hoo!
Tommy's a notty boy, he is."

"I'm going to tell Ma when she comes home, see if I don't," added
Isaphine.

"I ain't a bad boy," cried Tommy. "Stop a-shaking of me, Mell Davis. We
was playing they was sheep. I was a-shearing of em."

"O Tommy, Tommy!" cried poor Mell, hot, angry, and dismayed, "how could
you do such a thing?"

"They was sheep," retorted Tommy sulkily.

"Boo-hoo! boo-hoo!" blubbered Belinda. "I don't like my hair to be cut
off. It makes my head feel all cold."

"He didn't play nice a bit," sobbed Isaphine. "He's always notty to us."

"I'll cut off your head," declared Tommy, threatening with the scissors.

Mell seized the scissors, and captured them, Tommy kicking and
struggling meantime. Then she waked up the babies, tied on Belinda's
shoe, collected the unhappy pigtails, and said they must all go home.
Home! The very idea made her sick with fright.

I don't suppose such a deplorable little procession was ever seen
before. Isaphine and Belinda went first; then the little ones, very
cross after their nap; and, lastly, Mell, holding Tommy's arm, and
driving the poor little shorn sheep before her with the handle of the
parasol, which she used as a shepherdess uses her crook. They were all
tired and hungry. The babies cried. The sun was very hot. The road
seemed miles long. Every now and then Mell had to let them sit down to
rest. It was nearly four o'clock when they reached home; and, long
before that, Mell was so weary and discouraged that it seemed as if she
should like to lie down and die.

They got home at last. Mell's hand was on the garden gate, when suddenly
a sight so terrible met her eyes that she stood rooted to the spot,
unable to move an inch further. There in the doorway was Mrs. Davis. Her
face was white with anger as she looked at the children. Mell felt the
coral beads burn about her throat. She dropped the parasol as if her arm
was broken, the guilty tails hung from her hand, and she wished with
all her heart that the earth could open and swallow her up.

It was a full moment before anybody spoke. Then "What does this mean?"
asked Mrs. Davis, in an awful voice.

Mell could not answer. But the children broke out in full chorus of
lament.

"Tommy was so bad to us." "He lost us in the woods." "He stole the
scissors, and they were dirty scissors." "Mell went away and left us all
alone."

"Yes," cried Mrs. Davis, her wrath rising with each word, "I know very
well what you were up to, miss. All my things upset. As soon as I found
out that I had forgotten my key, I knew very well--" her voice died away
into the silence of horror. She had just caught sight of Belinda's
cropped head.

"Tommy did it. He cut off all our hairs," blubbered Belinda.

Mell shut her eyes tight. She was too frightened to move. She felt
herself clutched, dragged in-doors, upstairs, and her ears boxed, all
in a moment. Mrs. Davis pushed her violently forward, a door banged, a
key turned.

"There you stay for a week, and on bread and water," cried a voice
through the keyhole; and Mell, opening her eyes, found herself in the
dark and alone. She knew very well where she was,--in the closet under
the attic stairs; a place she dreaded, because she had once seen a mouse
there, and Mell was particularly afraid of mice.

"Oh, don't shut me up here! Please don't; please let me out, please,"
she shrieked. But Mrs. Davis had gone downstairs, and nobody replied.

"They'll come and eat me up as soon as it grows dark," thought Mell; and
this idea so terrified her that she began to beat on the door with her
hands, and scream at the top of her voice. No one came. And after a
while she grew so weary that she could scream no longer; so she curled
herself up on the floor of the closet and went to sleep.

When she woke the closet was darker than ever. Mell felt weak and ill
for want of food. Her head ached; her bones ached from lying on the hard
floor; she was feverish and very miserable.

"It's dark; she's going to leave me here all night," sobbed Mell. "Oh!
won't somebody come and let me out?" Now _would_ have been a chance to
play that she was a princess shut up in a dark dungeon! But Mell didn't
feel like playing. She was a real little girl shut up in a closet, and
it wasn't nice at all. There was no "make believe" left in her just
then.

Suddenly a fine scratching sound began in the wall close to her head.
"The mouse, the mouse," thought Mell, and she gave a shriek so loud that
it would have scared away a whole army of mice. The shriek sounded all
over the house. It woke the children in their beds, and rang in the ears
of Mrs. Davis, who was sitting down to supper in the kitchen with
somebody just arrived,--a big, brown, rough-bearded somebody, who smelt
of salt-water; Mell's father, in short, returned from sea.

"What's that?" asked Captain Davis, putting down his cup.

Mrs. Davis was frightened. In the excitement of her husband's sudden
return she had quite forgotten poor Mell in her closet.

"Some of the children," she answered, trying to speak carelessly. "I'll
run up."

Another terrible shriek. Captain Davis seized a candle, and hurried
upstairs after his wife.

He was just in time to see her unlock the closet door, and poor Mell
tumble out, tear-stained, white, frightened almost out of her wits. She
clutched her step-mother's dress with both hands.

"Oh, don't make me go in there again!" she pleaded. "I will be good.
I'll never meddle with the things in the chest any more. There are mice
in there, hundreds of 'em; they'll run all over me; they'll eat me up.
Oh, _don't_ make me go in there again!"

"Why, it's my little Mell!" cried the amazed Captain. "Shiver my
timbers! what does this mean?" He lifted Mell into his arms and looked
sternly at his wife.

"She's been a _very_ naughty girl," said Mrs. Davis, trying to speak
boldly. "So naughty that I had to shut her up. Stop crying so, Mell. I
forgive you now. I hope you'll never be so bad again."

"Oh, may I come out?" sobbed Mell, clinging to her father's neck. "You
said I must stay a week, but I couldn't do that, the mice would kill me.
Mice are so awful!" She shuddered with horror as she spoke.

"This ain't a pleasant welcome for a man just in from sea," remarked
Captain Davis.

Mrs. Davis explained and tried to smooth the matter over, but the
Captain continued very sober all that evening. Mell thought it was
because he was angry with her, but her step-mother knew very well that
she also was in disgrace. The truth was that the Captain was thinking
what to do. He was not a man of many words, but he felt that affairs at
home must go very wrong when he was away, and that such a state of
things was bad for his wife, and very bad for Mell.

So in a day or two he went off to Cape Cod, "to see his old mother," as
he said, in reality to consult her as to what should be done. When he
came back, he asked Mell how she would like to go and live with
Grandmother and be her little girl.

"Will she shut me up in closets?" asked Mell apprehensively.

"No, she'll be very kind to you if you are a good girl. Grandma's an old
lady now. She wants a handy child about the house to help, and sort of
pet and make much of."

"I--guess--I'll--like--it," said Mell slowly. "It's a good way from
here, isn't it?"

"Yes,--a good way."

Mell nodded her head in a satisfied manner. "_She'll_ not often come
there," she thought. "She" meant Mrs. Davis.

Mrs. Davis was unusually pleasant for the few remaining days which Mell
spent at home. I do not think she had ever meant to treat Mell unkindly,
but she had a hot temper, and the care of five unruly children is a good
deal for one woman to undertake, without counting in a little
step-daughter with a head stuffed with fairy stories. She washed and
ironed, mended and packed for Mell as kindly as possible, and did not
say one cross word, not even when her husband brought the coral necklace
from the big chest and gave it to Mell for her very own. "The child had
a right to her mother's necklace," he said. All was peaceful and serene,
and when Mell said good-by she surprised herself by feeling quite sorry
to go, and kissed Gabella Sarah's small face with tears in her eyes.

Grandmother was just such a dear old woman as one reads about in books.
Her cheeks were all criss-crossed with little wrinkles, which made her
look as if she were always smiling. Her forehead was smooth, her eyes
kind and blue. She was small, thin, and wiry. Her laugh was as fresh as
a young woman's. Mell loved her at once, and was sure that she should be
happy to live with her and be her little girl.

"Why, Bethuel, you've brought me a real good helper," said Grandmother,
as Mell ran to and fro, setting the tea-table, cutting bread, and
learning where things were kept. "I shall sit like a lady and do nothing
but rock in my cheer now that I've got Mell." Mell heard the kind words,
and sprang about more busily than ever. It was a new thing to be
praised.

Before Captain Davis went next day he walked over to Barnstable, and
came back with a parcel in his hand. The parcel was for Mell. It
contained the Fairy Tales,--all new and complete, bound in beautiful red
covers.

"You shall read them aloud to me in the evenings," said Grandmother.

That night, if anybody had peeped through the window of Grandmother's
little house he would have seen a pleasant sight. The kitchen was all
in order; the lamp burned clear; Grandmother sat in her rocking-chair
with a smile on her kind old face, while Mell, at her feet on a little
stool, opened the Fairy Tales, and prepared to read. "Once upon a time
there lived a beautiful Princess," she began;--then a sudden sense of
the delightfulness of all this overcame her. She dropped the book into
her lap, clasped her hands tight, and said, half to herself, half to
Grandmother, "_Isn't_ it nice?"

MISTRESS MARY.

IT was the first of May; but May was in an April mood,--half cloudy,
half shiny,--and belied her name. Sprinkles of silvery rain dotted the
way-side dust; flashes of sun caught the drops as they fell, and turned
each into a tiny mirror fit for fairy faces. The trees were raining too,
showers of willow-catkins and cherry-bud calyxes, which fell noiselessly
and strewed the ground. The children kicked the soft brown drifts aside
with their feet as they walked along.

The doors of the Methodist meeting-house at Valley Hill stood open, and
crowds of men and women and children were going into them. It was not
Sunday which called the people together: it was the annual Conference
meeting; and all the country round was there to hear the reports and
learn where the ministers were to be sent for the next two years.
Methodist clergymen, you know, are not "called" by the people of the
parish, as other clergymen are. They go where the church sends them, and
every second year they are all changed to other parishes. This, it is
thought, keeps the people and pastors fresh and interested in each
other. But I don't know. Human beings, as well as vegetables, have a
trick of putting down roots; and even a cabbage or a potato would resent
such transplanting, and would refuse to thrive.

Sometimes, when a parish has become attached to its minister, it will
plead to have him stay longer. Now and then this request is granted;
but, as a rule, the minister has to go. And it is a hard rule for his
wife and children, who have to go too.

The Valley Hill people "thought a heap" of their minister, Mr. Forcythe,
and had begged hard that he might stay with them for another term.
Everybody belonging to the church had come to the meeting feeling
anxious, and yet pretty certain that the answer would be favorable. All
over the building, people were whispering about the matter, and heads
were nodding and bowing. The bonnets on these heads were curiously
alike. Mrs. Perry, the village milliner, never had more than one pattern
hat. "That is what is worn," she said; and nobody disputed the fact,
which saved Mrs. Perry trouble. The Valley Hill people liked it just as
well, and didn't mind the lack of variety. This year Mrs. Perry had
announced yellow to be the fashion, so nine out of ten of the hats
present were trimmed with yellow ribbon crossed in just the same way
over a yellow straw crown; and the church looked like a bed of sisterly
tulips nodding and bowing in the wind.

Bishop Judson was the person to read the announcements. He was a nice
old man, kind at heart, though formal in manner, and anxious eyes were
fixed on him as he got up with a paper in his hand. That important
little paper held comfort or discomfort for ever so many people. Every
one bent forward to listen. It was so still all over the church that you
might have heard a pin drop. The Bishop began with a little speech about
the virtues of patience and contentment, and how important it was that
everybody should be quite satisfied whatever happened to them. Then he
opened the paper.

"Brother Johnson, Middlebury," he read. Middlebury was a favorite
parish, so Brother Johnson looked pleased, and Sister Johnson was
congratulated by the friends who sat near her. "Brother Woodward, Little
Falls; Brother Ashe, Plunxet; Brother Allen, Claxton Corners." And so
on. Some faces grew bright, some sad, as the reading proceeded. At last
"Brother Forcythe, Redding; Brother Martin, Valley Hill," was announced.
A quiver of disappointment went over the church, and a little girl
sitting in the gallery began to cry.

"My dear, my dear," whispered her mother, much distressed at her sobs
and gulps. People looked up from below; but Mary could not stop. She
took her mother's handkerchief and held it tight over her mouth; but the
sobs would come. Her heart was half-broken at the idea of leaving Valley
Hill and going to that horrid Redding, where nobody wanted to go.

Old Mrs. Clapp, from behind, reached over and gave her a bunch of
fennel. But the fennel only made Mary cry harder. In Redding, she was
sure, would be no kind Mrs. Clapp, no "meeting-house seed;" and her sobs
grew thicker at the thought.

"I observe that your little daughter seems to be distressed," said
Bishop Judson, as Mrs. Forcythe led the sobbing Mary down from the
gallery at the end of service. "Children of her age form strong
attachments to places, I am aware. But it is well to break them before
they become unduly strong. Here we have no continuing city, you know."

"Yes," said poor Mrs. Forcythe, with a meek sigh. She had been married
fourteen years, and this was her seventh move.

"Redding--hum--is a desirable place in some respects," went on the
Bishop. "There is a great work to do there,--a great work. It requires a
man of Brother Forcythe's energy to meet it. Mistress Mary here will
doubtless find consolation in the thought that her father's sphere of
usefulness is--h'm--enlarged."

"But we shan't have any garden," faltered Mary, "Tilly Brooks, who was
there before, says it isn't a bit nice. She never saw a flower all the
time she was there, she said. I'd just planted my bed in the garden
here. Mrs. Clapp gave me six pansies, and it was going to be so pretty.
Now I've got to--leave--'em." Her voice died away into sobs.

"Tut, tut!" said the Bishop. "The customs of a church cannot be set
aside to accommodate a child's flower-bed. You'll find other things to
please you in Redding, Mistress Mary. Come, come, dry your eyes. Your
father's daughter should not set an example like this."

"No, sir," gulped Mary, mortified at this reproof from the Bishop, who
was an important person, and much looked up to. She did her best to stop
crying, but it was hard work. When they reached home, the sight of the
pansies perking their yellow and purple faces up to meet her, renewed
her grief. There was her mignonette seed not yet sprouted. If she had
known that they were going away, she would not have planted any. There,
worst of all, was the corner where she had planned such a nice surprise
for her mother,--"A. F." in green parsley letters. A. F. stood for Anne
Forcythe. Now, mother would never see the letters or know any thing
about it. Oh dear, oh dear!

Mrs. Forcythe's own disappointment was great, for they had all made sure
that they should stay. But, like a true mother, she put her share of the
grief aside, and thought only of comforting Mary.

"Don't feel so badly, dear," she said. "Recollect, you'll have Papa
still, and me and Frank and little Peter. We'll manage to be happy
somehow. Redding isn't half so disagreeable as you think."

"Yes, it is. Tilly said so. I was going to have radishes and a
rose-bush," replied Mary tearfully. "There's a robin just building in
the elm-tree now. There won't be any trees in Redding; only horrid hard
cobble-stones."

"We must hope for the best," said Mrs. Forcythe, who did not enjoy the
idea of the cobble-stones any more than Mary did.

"Only ten days more at Valley Hill," was the first thought that came
into Mary's mind the next morning. She went downstairs cross and out of
spirits. Her mother was laying sheets and table-cloths in a trunk. The
books were gone from the little book-shelf; every thing had already
begun to look unsettled and uncomfortable.

"I shall depend on you to take care of little Peter," said Mrs.
Forcythe. "We shall all have to work hard if we are to get off next
Monday week."

Mary gave an impatient shrug with her shoulders. She loved little Peter,
but it seemed an injury just then to have to take care of him. All the
time that her mother was sorting, counting, and arranging where things
should go, she sat in the window sullen and unhappy, looking out at the
pansy-bed. Peter grew tired of a companion who did nothing to amuse him,
and began to sprawl and scramble upstairs.

"O baby, come back!" cried Mary, and, I am sorry to say, gave him a
shake. Peter cried, and that brought poor weary Mrs. Forcythe
downstairs.

"Can't you manage to make him happy?" she said. Mary only pouted.

All that day and the next and the next it was the same. Mrs. Forcythe
was busy every moment. There were a thousand things to do, another
thousand to remember. People kept coming in to say good-by. Peter
wandered out on the door-steps when Mary's back was turned, took cold,
and was threatened with croup. Mrs. Forcythe was half sick herself from
worry and fatigue. And all this time Mary, instead of helping, was one
of her mother's chief anxieties. She fretted and complained continually.
Every thing went wrong. Each article put into the boxes cost her a flood
of tears. Each friend who dropped in, renewed the sense of loss. She
scarcely noticed her mother's pale face at all. All the brightness and
busy-ness in her was changed for selfish lamentations, and still the
burden of her complaint was, "I shan't have any flowers in Redding. My
garden, oh, my garden."

"I don't know what's come to her," said poor Mrs. Forcythe. "She's not
like the same child at all." And old Mrs. Clapp, who had been very fond
of Mary, declared that she never knew a girl so altered.

"She's the most _contrary_ piece you ever saw," she said to her
daughter. "I could have given her a right-down good slap just now for
the way she spoke to her mother. It's all her fault that the baby took
cold. She don't lift a hand to help, and I expect as sure as Fate that
we'll have Mrs. Forcythe sick before we get through. I wouldn't have
believed that such a likely girl as Mary Forcythe could act so."

Poor "contrary" Mary! She was very unhappy. The fatal last morning came.
All the boxes were packed. The drays, laden with furniture and beds,
stood at the gate. Mrs. Clapp, and Mrs. Elder, the class-leader, were
going over the house collecting last things and doing last jobs. Mary
wandered out alone into the garden for a farewell look at her pets.

"Good-by, pansies," she said, bending over them. There were only five in
the bed now, for Mary had taken up one and packed it in paper to carry
with her. A big tear hopped down her nose and splashed into the middle
of the yellow pansy, her favorite of all. It turned up its bright
kitten-face just the same. None of them minded Mary's going away.
Flowers are sometimes so unkind to people.

"Good-by, rose-bush," proceeded Mary, turning from the pansy-bed.
"Good-by, honey-suckle. Good-by, peony. Good-by, matter-i-mony." This
sounds funny, but Mary only meant by it a vine with a small purple
flower which grew over the back-door. "Good-by, lilac," she went on.
"Good-by, grass plot." This brought her to the gate. The wagon stood
waiting to carry them to the railroad, three miles away. Mrs. Forcythe,
with the baby in her arms, was just getting in. "Hurry, Mary," called
her father. Slowly she opened the gate, slowly shut it. Her father
helped her over the wheel. She sat down beside Frank. Mrs. Clapp waved
her handkerchief, then put it to her eyes. Mary took a long look at the
pretty garden just budding with spring, and burst into tears. Mr.
Forcythe chirruped to the horse; they were off,--and that was their
good-by to Valley Hill.

Redding was certainly very different. It was an old-fashioned town with
narrow streets, which smelt of fish. Most of the people were sailors, or
had something to do with ships. There were several nice churches, and
outside the town a few handsome houses, but there were a great many poor
people in the place and not many rich ones.

In the very narrowest of all the streets stood the parsonage; a little
brick house with a paved yard behind, just wide enough for
clothes-lines. When the wash was hung out there was not an inch to
spare on either side. Mary gave up all hope as soon as she saw it. There
was not room even for _one_ pansy. The windows looked out on chimneys
and roofs and other backyards, with lines of wet clothes flapping in the
sun. Not a tree was to be seen. Any one might be excused for thinking it
doleful; and Mary, having made up her mind beforehand to dislike it,
found it easy to keep her resolution.

There was no possibility of getting things to rights that night; though
several people came in to help, and a comfortable supper was ready
spread for the travellers on their arrival. Mrs. Forcythe was cheered by
this kindness, but Mary could not be cheerful. She had to sleep upon a
mattress laid on the floor. At another time this would have been fun,
but now it did not seem funny at all; it was only part and parcel of the
misery of coming to live in Redding. She cried herself to sleep, and
came down in the morning with swollen eyelids and a disposition to make
the very worst of things,--easy enough for any girl to do if she sets
about it.

She scarcely thanked her father when he went out and bought a red pot
for the unlucky pansy, which, after its travels and its night in brown
paper, looked as disconsolate as Mary herself. "I know it'll die right
away," she muttered as she set it on the window-sill. "Oh, dear, there's
mother calling. What _does_ she want?"

"Mary, dear," said Mrs. Forcythe when she went down, "where have you
been? I want you to put away the dishes for me."

"I'm so tired," objected Mary crossly.

"Don't you think that mother must be tired too?" asked her father
gravely.

Mary blushed and began to place the cups and plates on the cupboard
shelves. Her slow movements attracted her father's attention.

"What's the matter?" he said. "At Valley Hill you were as brisk as a
bee, always wanting to help in every thing. Here you seem unwilling to
move. How is it?"

"I--don't--like--Redding," broke out Mary in a burst of petulance.

"You haven't seen it yet."

"Yes, I have, Papa. I've seen it as much as I want to. It's horrid!"

"I never knew her to behave so before," said Mr. Forcythe in a perplexed
tone, as Mary, having unpacked the dishes, sobbed her way upstairs.

"She'll brighten when we are settled," replied Mrs. Forcythe, indulgent
as mothers are, and ready to hope the best of her child. "Oh, dear!
there's the baby waked up. Would you call Mary to go to him?"

So it went on all that week. Mr. and Mrs. Forcythe were very patient
with Mary, hoping always that this evil mood would pass, and their
bright, helpful little daughter come back to them again. She never
refused to do any thing that was asked of her; but you know the
difference between willing and unwilling service: Mary just did the
tasks set her, no more, and as soon as they were finished fled to her
own room to fret and cry. Her father took her out to walk and showed her
the new church, but Mary thought the church ugly, and the outside view
of Redding as unpleasant as the inside one. Dull streets, small houses
everywhere; no gardens, except now and then a single bed, edged with a
row of stiff cockle-shells by way of fence, and planted with pert
sweet-williams or crown imperials. These Mary thought were worse than no
flowers at all. Every thing smelt of fish. The very sea was made ugly by
warehouses and shabby wharves. The people they met were strangers; and,
altogether, the effect of Mary's walk was to send her back more homesick
than ever for Valley Hill.

By Friday night the little parsonage was in order. Mrs. Forcythe was a
capital manager. She planned and contrived, turned and twisted and made
things comfortable in a surprising way. But she overtired herself
greatly in doing this, and on Saturday morning Mary was waked by her
father calling from below that mother was very ill, and she must come
down at once and stay with her while he went for a doctor.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Mary, as she hurried on her clothes. "Now mother is
sick. It's all this hateful Redding. She never was sick when we lived in
the country."

But the hard mood melted the moment she saw her mother's pale face and
feeble smile.

"I hope I'm not going to be very ill," said Mrs. Forcythe; "probably
it's only that I have tired myself out. You'll have to be 'Mamma' for a
day or two, Mary dear. Make Papa as comfortable as you can. See that
Frank has his lunch put up for school, and don't let Peter take cold.
Oh, dear!--my head aches so hard that I can't talk. I know you'll do
your best Mary, won't you?"

Guess how Mary felt at this appeal! All her better nature came back in a
moment. She saw how wrong she had been in nursing her selfish griefs,
and letting this dear mother over-work herself. "O mother, I will,
indeed I will!" she cried, kissing the pale face; and, only waiting to
draw the blind so that the sun should not shine in, she flew
downstairs, eager to do all she could to make up for past ill-conduct.

The Doctor came. He said Mrs. Forcythe was threatened with fever, and
must be kept very quiet for several days. Mary had never in her life
worked so hard as she did that Saturday. There was breakfast, dinner,
supper to get, dishes to wash, water to heat, the fire to tend, rooms to
dust, beds to make, the baby to keep out of mischief. She was very tired
by night, but her heart felt lighter than it had for many days past. Do
you wonder at this? I can tell you the reason. Mary's troubles were
selfish troubles, and the moment she forgot herself in thinking of
somebody else, they became small and began to creep away.

"Pitty, pitty!" said little Peter, as he heard her singing over her
dish-washing. Mary caught him up and gave him a hearty kiss,--a real
Valley Hill kiss, such as she had given no one since they came to
Redding.

"Mary is doing famously," Mr. Forcythe told his wife that night. "She
has a first-rate head on her shoulders for a girl of her age." Mary
heard him, and was pleased. She liked--we all like--to be counted useful
and valuable. The bit of praise sent her back to her work with redoubled
zeal.

Next morning Mrs. Forcythe was a little better. Her head ached less; she
sat up on her pillows and drank a cup of tea. Mary was smoothing her
mother's hair with soft pats of the brush, when suddenly the church
bells began to ring. She had never heard such sounds before. The bell at
Valley Hill was cracked, and went tang--tang--tang, as if the
meeting-house were an old cow walking slowly about. These bells had a
dozen different voices,--some deep and solemn, others bright and clear,
but all beautiful; and across their pealing a soft, delicious chime from
the tower of the Episcopal church went to and fro, and wove itself in
and out like a thread of silver embroidery. Mary dropped the brush, and
clasped her hands tight. It was like listening to a song of which she
could not hear enough. When the last tinkle of the chime died away, she
unclasped her hands, and, turning from the window, cried, "O mother!
wasn't that lovely? There is _one_ pleasant thing in Redding, after
all!"

I do not think matters ever seemed so hard again after that morning when
Mary made friends with the church bells. It was the beginning of a
better understanding between her and her new home; and there is a great
deal in beginnings, even though they may work slowly toward their ends.

By the close of the week Mrs. Forcythe was downstairs again, weak and
pale, but able to sit in her chair and direct things, which Mary felt to
be a great comfort. The parishioners began to call. There were no rich
people among them; but it was a hard-working, active parish, and did a
great deal for its means. The Sunday-school was large and flourishing;
there was a missionary association, a home missionary association, a
mite society, and a sewing circle, which met every week to make clothes
for the poor and partake of tea, soda biscuit, and six sorts of cake.
Beside these, a new project had just been started, "The Seamen's
Daughters' Industrial Society;" or, in other words, a sewing-school for
little girls whose fathers were sailors. There were plenty of such
little girls in Redding.

"Your daughter will join, of course," said Mrs. Wallis, when she came to
call on her minister's wife. "It's important that the pastor's family
should take a part in every good work." Mrs. Wallis was the most
energetic woman of the congregation,--at the head of every thing.

"I'm afraid Mary's sewing is not good enough," replied Mrs. Forcythe.
"She isn't very skilful with her needle yet."

"Oh! she knows enough to teach those ignorant little creatures. Half of
them are foreigners, and never touch a needle in their homes. It's
every thing to give them some ideas beyond their own shiftless ways."

"Would you like to try, Mary?" asked her mother.

"I--don't--know," replied Mary, afraid to refuse, because Mrs. Wallis
looked so sharp and decided.

"Very well, then I'll call for you on Saturday, at half-past ten," went
on Mrs. Wallis, quite regardless of Mary's hesitating tone. "I'm glad
you'll come. It would never do not to have some of the minister's
family. Saturday morning, at half-past ten! Good-by, Mrs. Forcythe.
Don't get up; you look peaked still. To-morrow is baking day, and I
shall send you a green-currant pie. Perhaps _that'll_ do you good." With
these words she departed.

"Must I really teach in that school?" asked Mary dolefully.

"I think you'd better. The people expect it, and it will be a good thing
for you to practise sewing a little," replied her mother. "I daresay it
will be pleasanter than you think."

"It seems so funny that I should be set to teach any one to sew," said
Mary, bursting into a laugh. "Don't you recollect how Mrs. Clapp used to
scold me, and say I 'gobbled' my darns?"

"You mustn't 'gobble' before the seamen's daughters," said Mrs.
Forcythe, smiling. "It will be a capital lesson for you to try to teach
what you haven't quite learned yourself."

Punctual as the clock Mrs. Wallis appeared on Saturday, and bore the
unwilling Mary away to the sewing-school. Mrs. Forcythe watched them
from the window. She couldn't help laughing, their movements were so
comically different,--Mrs. Wallis was so brisk and decided, while Mary
lagged behind, dragging one slow foot after the other as if each moment
she longed to stop and dared not. Very different was her movement,
however, two hours later, when she returned. She came with a kind of
burst, her eyes bright with excitement, and her cheeks pinker than they
had been since she left Valley Hill.

"O mother, it is _so_ nice! Ever so many children were there,--thirty at
least; and Mrs. Wallis said I might choose any five I liked to be my
class. First, I chose the dearest little Irish girl. Her name is Norah,
and she's just as pretty as she can be, only her face was dreadfully
dirty, and her clothes all rags. Then her little sister Kathleen cried
to come; so I took her too. Then I chose a cunning little German tot
named Gretchen. She has yellow hair, braided in tight little tails down
her back, and is a good deal cleaner than the rest, but not very clean,
you know; and she hadn't any shoes at all. Then Mrs. Wallis brought up
the funniest little French girl, with a name I can't pronounce. I'm
going to call her Amy. And the last of all is an American, real pretty.
Her name is Rachel Gray. Her father is gone on a whaling voyage, and
won't be back for three years. Don't they sound nice, mother? I think I
shall like teaching them so much!"

"Do they know any thing about sewing?" asked Mrs. Forcythe.

"Not a thing. They made dreadful stitches. Kathleen cried because the
needle pricked her, and Rachel wanted to wear the thimble on the wrong
finger. Amy did the best. When they went away they all wanted to kiss
me, and Norah said she guessed I was the best teacher in the school.
Wasn't that cunning? Mrs. Wallis is real kind. She brought ever so much
gingerbread, and gave each of the children a piece."

"I'm glad it begins so well--"

"Yes. There's just one thing, though. The children's faces! You can't
think how dirty they are. I should like to give them a good scrub all
round."

"Well, why don't you?"

"How can I? There isn't any wash-bowl down at the school-room."

"If you liked you might have them all come here at ten o'clock, and walk
down with you. Then you could take them up to your room, wash their
faces and hands, and brush their hair smooth before you start. I really
think you would enjoy your teaching more if the scholars were clean."

"May I really do that?"

"Yes. I'll buy you a fresh cake of soap and a brush, and you can take
two clean towels from the drawer every Saturday morning. Make it a rule,
but be very gentle and pleasant about it or the children may refuse."

"O mother, what a good plan! Thank you so much," said Mary with
sparkling eyes. "Now I shall have real comfort with them."

There was great excitement in the sewing-class when they were told that
in future they were to go to "Teacher's" house every Saturday, and walk
down to school with her. They were a droll little procession enough when
they appeared the next week at the appointed time. Norah's toes were out
of her shoes. Her tangled curls were as rough as a bird's-nest, and the
hat on top of them looked as if it had sailed across every mud-puddle in
town. Little Kathleen's scanty garments were rather rags than clothes.
And Gretchen, tidiest of all, had smears of sausage on her rosy face,
and did not seem to have been brought into contact with soap and water
for weeks.

Mary led them up into her own room, which, plain as it was, looked like
a palace to the little ones after the dirt and discomfort of their
crowded homes. There were the nice clean towels, the new hair-brush, and
the big cake of honey-soap, mother's contributions to the undertaking.
The washing was quite a frolic. Norah cried a little at having her hair
pulled, but Mary was gentle and pleasant, and made the affair so amusing
that the children thought it pleasant to be clean, instead of disliking
it. She rewarded their patience by a kiss all round. Kathleen threw her
arms about Mary's neck and gave her a great hug. "You're iver so nice,"
she said, and Mary kissed her again.

So every Saturday from that time forward, Mary went to school followed
by a crowd of clean little faces, which looked all the brighter and
happier for their cleanliness. She was proud of her class, but their
ragged clothes distressed her greatly.

"It is such a pity," she told her mother. "They are so pretty, and they
look like beggars."

Mrs. Forcythe had only been waiting for this. She was not a woman to
give much advice, even to her own child. "Drop in a seed and let it
grow," was her motto.

"There's that old gingham of yours," she suggested. "You could spare
that for one of them, if there were anybody to make it over."

"_I'll_ make it!" cried Mary, "only--" her, face falling, "I don't know
how to cut dresses."

"I'll cut it for you if you like," said Mrs. Forcythe quietly.

"Will you, mother dear? How splendid. I'll make it for Norah. She's the
raggedest of all."

The gingham was measured, and proved enough to make frocks for Norah
and Kathleen too. Mary had double work to undertake, but her heart was
in her fingers, and they flew fast. It took every spare moment for a
fortnight to make the frocks, but when they were done and tried on to
the delighted children, they looked so nicely that Mary was rewarded for
her trouble and for the many needle-pricks in her forefinger.

"Only it's such a pity about the others," she told her mother. "They'll
think I'm partial, and I'm not, though I _do_ love Norah a little bit
the best, she's so affectionate. I wish we were rich. Then I could buy
frocks for them all."

"If you were rich, perhaps you wouldn't care about it," said her mother.
"A little here and a little there, a stitch, a kind word, a small
self-denial, these are in the power of all of us, and in course of time
they mount up and make a great deal. And, Mary dear, I've always found
if you once start in a path and are determined to keep on, somebody's
sure to come along and lend a helping hand, when you think you have got
to the end of every thing, and must stop or turn back."

"Well, I've got to the end of every thing now," said Mary. "There aren't
any more old frocks to make over, and we can't afford to buy new ones."

"Don't be discouraged," said her mother. "The way is sure to open
somehow."

"How wise mother is," thought Mary, when the very next week on their way
back from school Mrs. Wallis said, "I noticed that two of your scholars
had respectable frocks on to-day. I wonder if their mothers made them?
If they did, I've an old chintz dress which I could spare, and perhaps
Gretchen's mother and Amadine's could take it and fit them out too."

"I made the dresses," cried Mary joyfully. "And if you'll let me have
the old chintz, I'll make some more for the others, Mrs. Wallis. Oh, I'm
so glad."

"Did you make them," said Mrs. Wallis in a pleased tone. "Well, that's
first-rate. I'll send the chintz round to-night; and any other old
things I can find to help along."

So that night came a great bundle, which, on opening, revealed not only
the chintz, but a nice calico, some plaid ribbon, a large black alpaca
apron, and an old shirt of Mr. Wallis's. Such a busy time as Mary had in
planning how to make the most of these gifts. The chintz was long and
full. It had a cape, and made two beautiful frocks. The calico made
another frock and two nice pinafores, the black alpaca some small
aprons. Mary trimmed the two worst hats with the ribbon. Last of all,
she cut and stitched five narrow bands of the linen, which mother washed
and starched, and behold, the class had collars! I don't know which was
most pleased at this last decoration, Mary or the children.

"They are just as good as dolls to you, aren't they," said her father.

"O Papa! much better than _that_. Dolls can't laugh and talk, and they
don't really care any thing about you, you only just make believe that
they do. It's horrid to fit a doll's clothes; she sticks her arm out
stiff and won't bend it a bit. I'd rather have my class than all the
dolls in the world."

"Teaching those children is having a capital effect on Mary herself,"
said Mrs. Forcythe to her husband after Mary had gone away. "She gains
all the time in patience and industry, and is twice as careful of her
things as she used to be. I found her crying the other day because she
had torn her oldest frock, and the darn was sure to come in a bad place
when the frock was made over for Gretchen! Think of Mary's crying
because of having torn any thing!"

Time flies rapidly when people are busy and happy. Days crept into
weeks, weeks into months; before any one knew it two years were passed
and another Conference day was at hand. It met this time at Redding.

Mary, a tall girl of fifteen now, went with her mother to hear the
appointments read. The Redding people had applied to keep Mr. Forcythe
for another term, but the request was denied; and, when his name was
reached on the list, it appeared that he was to go back to Valley Hill.

"There's one person I know will be pleased," said the Bishop, pausing on
his way out of church to speak to Mrs. Forcythe. "Mistress Mary here!
She'll be glad to go back to Valley Hill again. But, hey-day! she
doesn't look glad. What! tears in her eyes. How is this?"

"I--don't--know--" sighed Mary. "I thought--I thought we should stay
here. Of course I feel sorry just at first."

"Sorry! Not want to leave Redding! Why, what a contrary little maid you
are! Don't you recollect how you cried, and said Redding was horrid."

"Yes," said Mary, on the verge of a sob. "But I like it now, Bishop. I
don't mind the fish a bit, and the funny old streets and the posy-beds
with cockle-shell edges are so nice, and the bells sound so sweet on
Sunday morning!--I like Redding ever so much."

"But your garden,--I remember how badly you felt to leave that. You
can't have a garden in Redding."

"No, but I have my little girls. I'd rather have them than a garden, a
great deal!"

"What does she mean?" asked the Bishop, turning to Mrs. Forcythe.

"Her sewing-class," replied Mrs. Forcythe, smiling.

"There they are!" cried Mary eagerly. "They're waiting for me. Do look
at them, Bishop; it's those five little girls in a row behind the second
pillar from the door. That big one is Norah, and the one in blue is
Rachel, and the littlest is named Kathleen. Isn't she pretty? They're
the sweetest little things, oh, I shall miss them so. I shan't ever have
such good times again as I've had with them." Her voice faltered; a lump
came in her throat. To hide it she slipped away, and went across the
church to where the little ones sat.

"That's a dear child of yours," said the good Bishop, looking after her.
"I guess she'll _do_ wherever she goes."

And I think Mary will.

LADY BIRD.

"NOW, Pocahontas Maria, sit still and don't disturb the little ones.
Imogene, that lesson must be learned before I come back, you know. Now,
dear, that was very, very naughty. When Mamma tells you to do things you
mustn't pout and poke Stella with your foot in that way. It isn't nice
at all. Stella is younger than you, and you ought to set her samples, as
Nursey says. Look at Ning Po Ganges, how good she is, and how she minds
all I say, and yet she's the littlest child I've got."

If anybody had been walking in Madam Bird's old-fashioned garden that
morning, and had heard these wise words coming from the other side of
the rose thicket, he would certainly have supposed that some old dame
with a school was hidden away there, or at the least an anxious Mamma
with a family of unruly children. But if this somebody had gone into the