CHAPTER XIX.--MRS. FERGUSON IS BAFFLED.

When Robbie awoke next morning at his usual early hour, and saw no

sign of his mother in the room, he thought he must have overslept

himself, so he jumped up quickly, and dressed.

He ran downstairs into the kitchen, and found Mrs. McDougall seated

before the empty grate.

She turned her head quickly as Robbie entered. In a moment the child

saw that something dreadful was the matter. Never in all his life had

he seen his mother look like that.

The child glanced at her wonderingly, then came close to her, with

the quick sympathy which is so sweet.

"Mother," he said, "is it Elsie and Duncan? Haven't you found them

yet?"

"No, Robbie," Mrs. McDougall replied. "They're just lost, and that's

all about it."

Robbie could not understand how it could be, but he saw that his

mother was in great trouble, and he did not like to ask any

questions.

"This will not do," Mrs. McDougall said, with a heavy sigh, as she

rose resolutely from her chair, and began bustling about. "You

shouldn't ha' got up yet, Robbie. It's over early for you."

"I thought it was late," Robbie said. "Mother," he added eagerly,

"might I--oh! might I run and fetch the milk for you? Oh, do just let

me go!"

[Illustration: "THE CHILD GLANCED AT HER WONDERINGLY" (_p. 264._)]

"Dear me! no, child," Mrs. McDougall replied. "You'd be lost too."

"Should I?" Robbie said, very crestfallen. "Can't I do nothing,

mother?"

"Yes; you shall feed the hens. You know how to do that, don't you,

Robbie? I'll just get the food ready for them."

Robbie was delighted. He longed to be useful.

Mrs. McDougall bustled about, and got the breakfast--porridge without

milk--set everything in order, then went up to see to her mother,

just as if nothing had happened. She was not the woman to sit idly

nursing her troubles.

As soon as she had partaken of a little food, she prepared to depart

once more on her anxious errand, with many an injunction to Robbie

not to go outside the gate, and to keep a watch, in case Elsie and

Duncan might return, but be afraid to enter.

At the police-station there was no news. Bills were being printed,

she was informed, and would be widely distributed before the day was

out. Any information they received should be sent to her.

She waited for more than an hour in order to see the bill. It was

some sort of consolation to her to see the great black letters, and

read the description of the children in black and white.

"This cannot fail to find them," the officer told her. "Every police

office in the country will be furnished with this description. The

children can't have got very far away. Some of our men must come

across them."

"Far enough away to have got beyond our reach," Mrs. McDougall said,

dubiously. "And who knows but they may have fallen into bad hands, or

got stuck in some bog in the blackness of the night?" she added, with

a shudder.

"They'd keep fast enough to the road," the man said, re-assuringly.

"I'd rather ten times over that they should be lying dead in the

woods or on a mountain side than that they should fall into the hands

of wicked men and women!" Mrs. McDougall said fervently. "The mercies

of God are a deal more tender than those of men. I could thank God

with all my heart to know that He had them safe."

"There are bad enough folk about," the policeman assented, "but your

children are over young to get led astray."

"I pray the Almighty that He'll grant them a merciful death rather

than they should fall into bad hands," Mrs. McDougall said, wearily,

as she rose to go. "Better for them to die of cold than to be

murdered by violence, or made to lie and steal."

"You're taking an over gloomy view of the matter, good wife," the man

said, cheerfully; "and perhaps you'll be getting them back safe and

sound before nightfall."

But that was not to be. The description of the children was, truly

enough, sent to every town or village that could boast a

police-station, and was eagerly discussed that very nightfall in many

a remote cottage. Had the children wandered farther, to even the

first village on their road, they must have been found, but they were

safely hidden from the outer world in the least suspected place of

any--the miserable hovel of one of those wretched tillers of the

land, too poor to deserve the name of farmer, with which some parts

of Scotland abound. The man was listless, and apathetic with hunger

and poverty, a miserable, degraded creature, who would have

sacrificed anything or anybody for the sake of the few pounds that

would pay his rent or sow his tiny bit of unproductive land.

He was the very last sort of person to hear rumours of the lost

children. On that day when he and his wretched beast had toiled the

distance of twenty miles to fetch a load of fish refuse from the

nearest fishing village in order to enrich his bit of barren land,

the bills about the children were not yet distributed. Even had they

been, he was little likely to have heard about them, for he was too

dull and dejected to talk with his neighbours. When he met them on

the road, the idea of giving them a lift would not have penetrated

his mind had not Elsie herself requested it. Yet the man was no worse

than his fellows, and had an element of unselfish kindness in him,

which was shown by his giving them the old sack to sit upon. Under

happier auspices he would probably have been a very decent sort of

person, but the hopeless hardship of his existence had gradually

wiped out every ambition and hope, till at last he had sunk into

something scarcely better than an animal.

And, children, let me tell you that there are plenty of us, now

bright and gentle and happy, who in Sandy Ferguson's place would have

been no better than he; and I wonder whether we always remember that

God judges every one, even His little ones, according to the

opportunities they have had?

Sandy had no thought of injuring the children any more than of

assisting them; but his wife, who was cleverer, and had therefore

become cunning and shrewish under the sordid cares of her life, saw

directly that she might gain something by keeping them.

She had taken away their clothes, partly because it angered her to

see these ungrateful runaway children warmly clothed while her own

were shivering in their rags, but far more with the idea of

preventing their escape. Their friends would come after them, and it

would be her own fault if she didn't see some of their money, she

told herself. Five of her children had died from illness, caused by

want and cold and misery; it was little wonder that she had grown

grasping and cruel.

Yet she, too, meant them no harm. She was anxious enough to get rid

of them, for the miserable food that she gave them had to be stolen

from their own portions. She looked out eagerly for passers-by, in

the hope that the children's friends would overtake them, yet

jealously kept her secret, for fear that others might outwit her and

reap the reward.

On that day when she had been occupied in listening to a long account

of a neighbour's affairs, and had, as she supposed, got the children

doubly safe, by virtue of the watch she had set over them as well as

the safe custody of their clothes, she had been startled by hearing

from this very neighbour an account of how two children had been lost

off the moor, and a reward offered for them. She kept her countenance

admirably, and pretended to be most astonished and interested, but

she sat on thorns, fearing Sandy would betray her. The neighbours

stayed long, having much to talk of, and when at last they departed,

Mrs. Ferguson went on cleaning, satisfied that the children were

safe, since they were all together, and Sandy with them.

[Illustration: THE SONG OF A LITTLE BIRD (_p. 267._)]

By-and-by Sandy came in, and stood staring hopelessly. Then he began

to scratch his head, and looked altogether so stupid that Mrs.

Ferguson administered him a good shaking, and demanded of him what he

meant by it.

"Where be the bairns?" Sandy asked, in his rough Gaelic.

Then Mrs. Ferguson flew out, and when she could see none of them her

wrath knew no bounds. Young Sandy and Jamie, her two boys, were

discovered under the cart, and when dragged out and cuffed, declared

that Elsie and Duncan had beaten them, and then run as fast as they

could down the road; that they had called as loudly as they could,

but were unable to make any one hear; and plenty more tales, that

their mother knew were made up to shield themselves.

Having called them every bad name she could think of, and dealt them

some stinging blows, she flew along the road to seek them. The road

wound about pretty much, and as they were nowhere in sight, she

concluded they must have gone by it. She came back furiously angry

and disappointed, and continued her search till nightfall in the

immediate neighbourhood of the croft, but without success. Sandy and

Jamie were not to be envied that night.

Thus it happened that the police were quite baffled in their

endeavours to find the children, and after they had fallen into Mrs.

Donaldson's hands the description given was not accurate.

(_To be continued._)

THE SONG OF A LITTLE BIRD.

Though I'm but a small bird,

I may often be heard

These evenings in dreary November,

And my sisters and cousins

Come listening by dozens,

To songs they can learn and remember.

No nightingale I,

Yet when light's in the sky

It seems to go through me and through me

Till I'm overflowing

With music, scarce knowing

What wonder is happening to me.

Oh, Spring-time is sweet,

When loving birds meet,

But Autumn's the season for singing,

When all the dear swallows

Come out from the hollows,

And over the ocean are winging.

We stay where we are,

While they voyage afar,

But the parting leaves _us_ tender-hearted,

And we sing the more clearly

Of those we love dearly

When scores of our friends have departed.

A. M.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE DYKES OF HOLLAND.

Of all the wonderful countries in the world, and there are many, I do

not think there is any one half so wonderful as Holland. We have a

saying here that "God made the country, but man made the town," but

in Holland it is said "God made the world, but man made Holland," and

"God made the sea, but man made the shore."

Ages ago Holland was a wild desolate place in the midst of seas and

lakes, with here and there a forest of trees. The first people to

settle here were some German tribes, and a hard time they had of it.

First of all they had to build strong dykes or embankments round the

place in which they were going to encamp, so as to keep out the sea

and the waters of the rivers, which wandered where they would,

without proper channels; and after that they built rude huts and

hovels for themselves. Sometimes they would be able to hold their own

for a long time, but it often happened that there would be storms and

high tides, and then their settlements would be swept away. Then they

moved off somewhere else, living in the meantime as best they could

on fish and game and sea-birds' eggs.

At length many of these tribes joined together to see if they could

not find some place where they would be more protected, and where

they might unite in building great dykes which should be able to

resist the seas and the wandering rivers. So they first entrenched

themselves; then they spread out farther afield and enclosed larger

tracts of land; then they built dykes big enough to protect whole

provinces, and at last they made a great sea-wall or embankment round

the whole land.

But why was all this labour necessary? you will ask. Well, it was

because the country lies so low that the waters could sweep over it;

and even to-day, although there are beautiful towns and cities in

Holland, with hundreds and thousands of people, and thousands upon

thousands of cattle, the land is lower than the sea; the cities are

built upon piles driven into the sand; the river-beds are higher than

the tops of the houses, and at any moment, if the dykes were to

burst, or the rivers to overflow, the whole country with all its

inhabitants might be swept away. It has been well said that "Holland

is a conquest made by man over the sea. It is an artificial country.

The Hollanders made it. It exists because the Hollanders preserve it.

It will vanish whenever the Hollanders shall abandon it."

The dykes or embankments have been made in this way: first of all

secure and massive foundations had to be laid, the ground being

compressed to make it very solid. Then walls, or dykes, were reared

of earth, sand, and mud, so tightly compressed as to be quite

impervious to water. The whole was bound with twigs of willows

interwoven with wonderful care, and the spaces filled with clay so as

to make them almost as hard as stone.

[Illustration: A LANDSCAPE IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE HAGUE,

HOLLAND.]

Then the dykes were planted with trees, which throw out a network of

roots, and help to hold the whole structure firmly together. On the

dykes there are over 9,000 windmills always at work, pumping up water

to keep the land dry; and there are in the whole country nearly 1,150

miles of canals, for diverting the waters, a good many of their

bottoms being higher than the land they drain.

Every dyke in the land is under constant inspection, and every three

years the network of willow-twigs is renewed. It is one of the

strangest sensations in the world to stand at the foot of one of

these outer dykes at high tide and hear the angry breakers of the sea

dashing against the other side of the wall, at a height of 16 ft. or

18 ft. above your head.

From the beginning of their history until the present time the

Hollanders have had to fight the waters, and they will have to do so

as long as their country exists. There are two great sources of

danger--the sea and the rivers; and either left neglected would very

soon lead to hopeless ruin. There is therefore a great institution,

or society, in the country, called the Waterstaat, for watching and

controlling the water. Everybody in the land is obliged to obey its

commands. If any one see the water threatening to pour in, he must at

once give the alarm, and all the people of the district, and of all

the districts round about, must be summoned by the ringing of the

alarm-bells, and by the booming of cannon, and then old and young,

rich and poor, soldiers and public servants, must all set to work

together and fight the common foe.

Notwithstanding all the constant vigilance there are terrible stories

told in Holland of inundations. It is recorded that during thirteen

centuries there has been one great inundation, besides smaller

ones, every seven years. When that great flood came, in the end of

the thirteenth century, which formed the Zuyder Zee, 80,000 persons

were drowned; in 1421, in one night 72 villages and 100,000 persons

were swept away, and even so recently as the year 1855, there was a

great inundation which invaded the provinces of Gueldres and Utrecht,

and covered a great part of North Brabant.

[Illustration: COAST SCENE IN HOLLAND, WITH DYKED MARSHES.]

Most of these catastrophes occurred from the sudden rising of the

waters and the bursting of the dams; but it is not from these causes

only that the safety of the country is threatened. If you go into the

Museum at Leyden you will see some pieces of wood full of little tiny

holes. These once formed part of piles and sluice-gates, and they are

very memorable to the Dutch people, for they call to mind a terrible

danger which befell them once, and might do so again at any time. A

ship returning from the tropics brought with it, it is supposed,

some tiny little shell-fish, the _Teredo navalis_. These increased

and multiplied with marvellous rapidity, and swarmed the waters. One

day every inhabitant of the land was seized with terror, for it was

found that these little creatures had nearly eaten away the

sluice-gates of the dykes, and had it not been that night and day an

immense body of men worked with the energy of those who were trying

to save the lives of themselves and their wives and their little

ones, the sea, their great enemy, would have been let loose upon

them. "A worm," says the historian, "had made Holland tremble."

Once the dykes were cut and the country flooded purposely. It was

when Leyden was holding out against the Spaniards, led by Valdez. For

four months the people had been besieged, and at last provisions had

failed. But when Valdez summoned them to surrender, Vanderdoes, the

burgomaster, replied "that when provisions utterly failed, then they

would devour their left hands, reserving their right hands to defend

their liberty." One day, when the people were reduced almost to their

last extremity, a carrier pigeon was seen flying into the beleaguered

city, and it brought the joyful news that the Prince of Orange was

coming to their deliverance, having cut the dykes and flooded the

country in order that his flotilla of 200 boats laden with provision

might reach them. But the water did not rise high enough, the

flotilla got stranded, and the poor starving people could see the

supplies in the distance, but could not get at them, and it seemed so

hard to die of starvation with plenty of food in sight. At last

relief came in an unexpected way: the wind arose and a violent storm

drove in the flood through the broken dykes, and onward it poured

with increasing volume and power, sweeping away the cruel Spaniards,

and bearing the flotilla to the very gates of the city. It is no

wonder that in commemoration of this almost miraculous deliverance on

the 3rd October, 1574, the citizens hold an annual festival.

There is a story told all over Holland--and it has been retold in

almost all languages--of a boy, the son of a dykeman, who once saved

the country, but whose name, strange to say, has not been preserved.

He was only a little fellow eight years old, but like every child in

that country, he knew of the danger in which he lived, and how at any

time if he should see any sign of water coming in through an

embankment, or a sluice-gate, where it ought not, it was his bounden

duty immediately to give the alarm. One day he asked his father's

permission to go to a village not far off to carry a little present

to a blind man who lived there, and who had often talked very kindly

to him. He did not stay long at the village, for his father had

bidden him to hurry home, but being only a very little boy he walked

on and on, thinking of the words the blind man had spoken to him, and

of a hundred other things, and paying very little heed to the way in

which he was going. After a long time he found that he had taken a

wrong road, and was in a desolate part of the country close up by the

dykes. It was in the month of October, and night was just coming on,

so he climbed up the embankment to try and see the nearest way he

could take to reach his home. As he was descending he passed by one

of the great flood-gates of the dyke. Pausing for just a moment

before making a scamper off towards home, he heard a sound which

filled him with dismay--it was the sound of water falling and

trickling over stones. He knew it was his duty to find out where it

was, and very soon he saw a hole in the wood-work through which the

water was coming pretty freely. Examining it more carefully he saw

that the pressure was threatening to open up a wide crack in the

gate; and, child as he was, he knew that if it were not stopped that

little stream would soon become a cascade, a great sheet of water, a

torrent, and then a terrible inundation which would end in desolation

and death. So the little fellow did not hesitate. He determined to

try and prevent the mischief. Reaching up to the hole he placed his

finger in it, but soon he found that the wood was rotten, and that

the small hole would soon become larger. So he took off his jacket

and, tearing off a sleeve, he inserted part of this in the hole, and

for a time it resisted the water. But not for long. He found that the

pressure was not strong and even enough, and that there was nothing

for it but to tear away the edges of the decaying wood and then to

put his arm, encased in the other sleeve of the jacket, into the

hole. To his delight he found that it exactly fitted and effectually

stayed the water. Meanwhile the night was growing darker and he was

far from home. But the brave little man would not leave his post. He

called at the top of his voice, but there was no one to answer, and

his only hope was that some of the dykemen going their rounds might

hear his voice and come to his relief. But no one came. Hours passed

away and still he was alone, and still the water was resisted. He was

in terrible pain, however, for in that chill October night the water

was very cold, and his hand and arm and shoulder were so benumbed

that he knew not how he could endure it. Then he thought that if he

did not persevere the waters would come in and drown perhaps his

father and his mother and the neighbours, and he knew not how many

others besides, and so he determined, however great the pain might

be, to bear it, God helping him. Very long and very terrible were

those dark hours of the night, and the poor child cried bitterly with

the pain and the terror, but he did not remove his arm!

At last, in the early morning, he heard what seemed to be the sound

of footsteps, and raising his voice to its highest pitch he soon had

the joy of seeing that some one was approaching. It was a clergyman

who had been spending the night by the bedside of a dying man, and

was returning home with the first gleams of the morning. He was

horrified to see a little child, pale, jacketless, shivering, with

eyes swollen with tears, and a face contorted with pain.

"Why are you here, my boy? What are you doing?" he asked anxiously.

"I am holding back the sea!" said the little hero.

And it was literally true--that child's arm had held back the enemy

that would have come in with a flood, carrying death and terrible

destruction.

"WHISTLING FOR IT."

The "it" was his supper. Dinner had been a movable feast that day,

tea indefinitely postponed, and Patch was beginning to fear that

supper also was fading away beyond his grasp.

"And I may go on whistling till that flute bursts itself before I get

a halfpenny," he remarked to himself in a tone of intense injury,

eyeing the "flute" (which was really a penny whistle) anxiously as he

rubbed it on his wet sleeve with a view to improving the notes. "All

this day and not a----"

"I say, Patch," broke in a mournful voice from behind, "couldn't you

lend me twopence just till to-morrow? It's to get some supper; I

haven't sold a single box since morning."

"Supper!" echoed Patch, turning sharply on his supplicant. "Do you

think I'd be blowing away here if I didn't want a supper myself?

You'd better go on to the bank and ask them."

"I've asked everybody, and it's no use," was the weary answer.

"Well it's no use here either, Mike; if I get any I'll want it

myself."

Mike listlessly wandered on a few steps farther up the dingy road,

and then collapsed, a mere bundle of rags, under the shadow of a

doorway.

"You'll not get much of a supper sitting there," commented Patch,

setting off himself in quest of a more appreciative audience.

At the corner of the next street was a big hospital, and Patch betook

himself thither. He had received stray coppers occasionally from the

visitors who came and went through the ponderous iron gates, and what

had been once might be again. Fortune was going to favour him at

last, he thought, for coming down the steps was a gentle-faced old

lady in a curiously-shaped bonnet and grey gown. Patch realised that

it was a case of "whistling for it" now, and no mistake; so he put on

his most dejected expression and piped out "The Last Rose of Summer"

with truly startling emphasis.

Unhappily there chanced to be a shaggy-haired dog waiting outside the

gate whose taste for music had evidently not been cultivated. At the

very first notes he raised his head with a long howl of disgust that

spoilt the effect entirely. It _was_ trying, for Patch saw his

prospects vanishing into thin air unless his rival could be promptly

silenced; so slipping cautiously behind, he dealt the animal as

vigorous a kick as the dilapidated state of his shoe would permit.

"Oh, thee should not have done that! the poor creature meant no

harm," cried the lady reproachfully, hastening down the steps to

console the sufferer; and Patch discovered, with confusion, that the

dog belonged to her. Truly it had been an unfortunate day.

"He looked like a poor dog; I didn't know it was yours," he stammered

out. "It's the first chance I've had to-day, and he was spoiling the

music."

The old lady looked gravely down at his pinched face and ragged

figure.

"Thee looks ill."

"It's enough to make a fellow ill--hungry like this all day long."

He looked as if he were speaking sorrowful truth. The old lady opened

her bag--"There is sixpence for thee to get some food with," she said

kindly, "and try and remember another time, friend, that if thee art

poor thyself there is the greater reason why thee should'st feel for

others who are poor likewise."

Patch looked from the coin to her face, almost too much astonished to

be grateful. Donations to him usually consisted of pence or halfpence

flung into the gutter, or carelessly dropped on the roadway. That a

lady--and a very beautiful old lady she seemed to him, in spite of

the old-fashioned dress and speech--should stand to talk to him in a

civil, pleasant voice was something new indeed, especially after that

unfortunate blunder about her dog.

"We are none of us so poor that we cannot help each other in some

little way," she went on gently, perhaps mistaking the cause of his

silence.

"There ain't anybody poorer than me," Patch answered; and his

appearance certainly justified the statement. "Much I could help

other folk!"

"Try and find out; it only needs a word sometimes. Good-night,

friend, do not stay here longer than thee can help in thy wet

clothes."

Patch received all the injunctions respectfully for the sake of the

sixpence, and proceeded to carry out the first of them straightway.

As quickly as his battered shoes would allow he was out of sight on

his way to a certain well-known cook-shop. There, in all the

assurance of conscious wealth, he planted his elbows on the

window-ledge and critically surveyed the contents. Great joints of

meat, slabs of suet pudding, dotted here and there with currants,

one--but that was a very superior compound--with raisins, cakes and

pies in abundance.

A mingled odour of coffee and tea floated through the open door; and

Patch, sniffing up the delightful fragrance, went through a rapid

mental calculation of the glorious possibilities within his reach.

[Illustration: WHISTLING FOR IT. (_See p. 271._)]

"Coffee twopence, a fine big cup too, bread and sausage twopence, and

a lump of the currant pudding to wind up; something like a supper

that."

Poor hungry Patch! as he lifted his arms from the ledge a sudden

recollection of Mike under the dark archway came back to his mind. He

wished it had not obtruded itself just then; he had quite enough

trouble to get food for himself without looking after other people,

and yet something made him hesitate on the threshold and presently go

back to his old position, elbows on the window-ledge, while he

solemnly debated the matter in his own mind.

It was a subject he had never considered before in all his solitary

selfish life; kindly words or deeds had not been his portion, and the

gentle-faced woman who had given him a sixpence instead of a scolding

was a new feature in his experience.

The debate ended in his walking soberly away from the bright visions

in the window to the humbler shop he usually favoured with his

custom, and there laying out the precious sixpence in bread and cold

meat. He took his purchase, the bread under his arm, the meat in a

piece of newspaper, and carried the feast to the doorway where Mike

still sat crouching in the chilly darkness.

"Wake up, Mike; see here what I've got. There's some for you as well;

sit up and begin."

Mike lifted his head from his arm in utter amazement. "You ain't

joking about it?" and then--he was but a little fellow, and hunger

is hard to bear--at the sight of the provisions Patch was laying out

on the newspaper wrapper, he began to cry for very gladness.

"Stop that!" ordered his host, peremptorily. "It's damp enough

without you beginning. Eat away, there's plenty of it."

"Did they trust you at the shop?" queried Mike when the banquet was

well in progress. "You said you'd no money."

"Did they ever trust you at the shop when you'd no money?" demanded

Patch, scornfully. "I paid for it, that's all you need bother

yourself about."

"It isn't that," explained his guest, hastily; "you never had

anything to spare before, and I was wondering how you afforded to

give me such a lot now."

Patch wondered too; then he crumpled up the paper table-cloth, and

flung it into the gutter. "I never wanted to give anything away

before," he remarked; "but perhaps--if you couldn't get it anywhere

else--I might give you a bit another time."

And presently in the dark a dirty hand stretched out and timidly

stroked his sleeve.

Patch went home down the wet streets with his flute. He looked poor

and ragged as ever, but he had at least taken the first step upward

that night in finding out the possibility even for him of helping

another.

SARAH PITT.

LITTLE TOILERS OF THE NIGHT.

III.--YOUNG GIPSIES.

"Do we work at night! yes, I b'lieve yer; and afore daylight too,

leastways, as soon as ever there's light enough to see by. Not always

we don't, but when the old man comes back, an' says we must do a

spell of peggin' there ain't no time hardly to get our vittles,

except perhaps a tater, or a bit o' bread and bacon; but that's ever

so much better than it used to be when poor mother was alive, and she

and me and Aunt Ann and Ben used to work the dolls and windmills, an'

the fly-ketchers, an' the flyin' birds."

She was a tall thin girl, with a flat dirty face, that would have

been pale, if it had not been burnt to a yellowish brown with the

sun, till it was only a shade lighter than the old battered straw hat

that had let a wisp or two of yellow hair through a great slit in

the back just above the brim. She wore a tattered cotton frock that

had nearly all the pattern washed out, which must have been a long

time before, because it was so stained and worn, so thin that it

would bear no more washing.

The girl was trudging along in a pair of broken boots, two sizes too

large for her, and trying to keep pace with a dark-haired sharp-eyed

little woman, wrapped in a frayed shawl, and with a bonnet that

looked as though it had been picked up from a dust-bin, as perhaps it

had, and while the woman carried half a dozen long sticks, such as

are used to prop up the lines upon which clothes are hung to dry, the

girl held in one hand a bundle of the wooden pegs with which

laundresses fastened the clothes to the lines, and in the other hand

a coil of the line itself.

All these things together could not have been worth much, but it

would be a hard day's work to cut the pegs, and a still harder day's

work to the girl and the woman to sell them all. A good many miles

of streets would have to be walked over, a good many area doors

knocked at, a number of cross people, or people who were afraid of

having something stolen, would shut those doors in their faces, and

perhaps when they had trudged back again to Stratford, a long, long

way on the other side of Whitechapel, they would only have earned a

shilling or two, and would have eaten nothing but a bit of bread,

unless somebody were kind enough to give them some food on purpose to

get rid of them, when they stood whining and saying, "Buy a

clothes-line, buy clothes-pegs, please to buy a clothes-prop," over

and over again.

"They takes us for thieves, I s'pose," said the woman, "and I don't

know that it's to be wondered at, for they reckon us all one with

gipsies, and though our people ain't really gipsies, you know,

they're not unlike 'em, and often we live much the same, and it can't

be denied that there's them amongst us as would lay their hands on

anything they see about; but none of my people would take what don't

belong to 'em either from a passage or behind a door or a street

stall--no, not if we was ever so badly off we wouldn't, would we,

'Liza?"

"I should think not, aunt," said the ragged girl. "Neither you nor

poor mother nor father ever taught us that. It was hard enough,

sometimes, as hard as it was yesterday, and is likely to be to-day,

and there wasn't nothing to look forward to, except when I went out

once or twice with father, or when he came home after a pretty good

day, and we had something for supper, and then we often had to sit up

at night to look over all the old clothes and the rags and bottles

that he'd got in change for the dolls or the win'mills, and now we

get more of the country in summer-time, and I ain't left off goin' to

the Sunday-school, have I aunt?"

"No," said the woman, looking down and speaking in a low voice; "I

shouldn't leave that off if I was you, and I often wish you could get

to be in some place of service with a family, or do something better

than live in this rough sort of a way. I a'most wish I'd never took

you away after your mother died; but your father went away and little

Ben was gone to sea, and I couldn't leave a little one like you to

work night after night and day after day at the match-box-making

along with other children, but with nobody to look after you." Here

the poor woman held down her face, and I thought I saw a tear drop on

to the back of the brown grimy hand that leaned upon the bundle of

clothes-props. "But it's no good now," she said, rising from the

bench where we were sitting. "What must be done to-day is to sell

these props and pegs, and to-morrow, if Uncle Dick comes back, and

has been pretty fortunate with the cart, we shall get our eggs and

bacon, and our beef stew again, 'Liza, and most likely shall have a

week or two in Epping Forest, with enough to eat, at all events."

"Stop a minute," said I; "perhaps I might find you a customer for

your props and pegs, and I want to hear about the doll-making and the

windmills."

The woman and the girl sat down again. It was on a bench upon an open

space of ground known as Hackney Downs (a few miles out of London), a

great bare-looking waste, where nearly all the grass has been worn

off, and there's not much to look at; but where a fine air blows, and

where there are a few benches for people to sit upon.

"Well, you see, sir, 'Liza had better tell you about the

doll-making," said the woman, "becos she begun to speak of it: not

that they was what _you'd_ call dolls, but only a sort of rough flat

shape, of a head an' body cut out of match-wood, with eyes and mouth

painted for a face, and bits of cotton print, or more often

wall-paper, pasted on for a dress, and another bit for a cap; they

was for poor people's children, don't you see, as could only afford a

ha'penny or a farthing."

"And what about the windmills and the birds?"

"Well, don't you see, sir," says 'Liza--"the windmills was made of

just the same bits of flat match-wood, that father brought home and

cut into thin strips like. The windmills was like the spokes of a

wheel joined together, with folded bits o' wall-paper, and fastened

with a round French nail to the end of a stick, so as when the wind

took 'em, they used to go round and round. The flying birds was this

way--the wheel was a little sort of a hoop, with two wooden spokes to

fasten it to the stick, and all the other spokes was made of strings

with bits of feathers tied on to 'em, so that when the wind took it

they looked like birds flying; as to the fly-ketchers, they was round

and square bits o' coloured wall-papers and tissue--put together in

strings till they looked like a sort of big Chinese lantern, to

entice the flies to settle on 'em. You must have seen such things,

sir; but then ours was common ones, of course, to sell for a penny,

or a bottle or two, or some old rags."

"Oh, that was it, eh?"

"Yes. You see father'd bring home the wood, and Aunt Ann would cut it

out to the shape--wouldn't you, aunt?--and poor mother'd cut out the

paper or the cotton print for the dolls clothes, or the windmills,

and I'd stick 'em on, or nail 'em on, and any of us 'ud paint the

eyes an' mouth, even little Ben could do that. We used to live over

beyond Bethnal Green, in a place called Twig Folly, and there was

plenty of us children that used to work at lucifer match-box making

about that part. When father took to the dolls and mills he bought

his own wood and bits of wall-paper and that; but we worked night and

day very often, so as to get a lot ready for him, when he used to go

out with a barrow and all the dolls stuck up, and the mills going

round, and the birds fluttering, and take 'em through the streets,

for miles, selling them for ha'pennies, or givin' one for an old

wine-bottle or a bundle o' rags, or old metal and such like. When he

had money to spare, he'd buy old clothes, and then when he came home,

we used to look through 'em to see which was to go with the rags, and

which we could sell to the second-hand dealer. I don't work no harder

now than I did then."

"What do you do now, then?"

"Well, you see, when poor mother died, and Ben was put aboard a ship

to be taught the sea, father--he--he--went away and aunt went back

where she'd been once before, to her brother-in-law's--which belongs

to the gipsies,--not the real gipsies, that lives in tents, and goes

about all over the country, but the London gipsies like, that lives

down Stratford and Plaistow way. It's at Stratford that we lives, and

there we cut these pegs out of the wood that Uncle Dick brings home;

and he brings the props too, and buys the line. There's four of us

gals, and when we ain't cuttin' the wood for the pegs we're

basket-makin' or straw-plaitin'; but there's times when we go out a

good bit, one or the other of us, I mean me and aunt and Uncle

Dick's children, because he's got a share in a cart--one o' them big

sort of carawans that's all hung round with baskets and mats, and

cane-work and brooms and brushes and cradles--and it's a rare change

too, to go along with it, though the walkin' makes your feet sore.

But it's more change still when we go nearer to Epping Forest in

summer-time, and live out there in the country in a covered wan and a

tent or two, and learn to plait baskets out of osiers, and to cane

chairs, and to make straw plait and all manner o' things, and only

cut clothes-pegs at odd times. We don't work much at night then, but

we're often up pretty early in the morning, I can tell you; but at

Stratford--it's a close bad-smellin' sort of a little place is our

lane, and we're pretty often hard at it by candle-light, or else

lamplight, making up baskets and clothes-pegs and things ready for

the trade in the summer. One thing is that when Uncle Dick makes a

good week he don't stint us in food, and, as poor mother used to say,

beggars mustn't be choosers, and I haven't got nobody to be good to

me but Aunt Ann."

"There, don't take on that way," says the woman, rather roughly,

though I can see another tear in her eye. "We've all got somebody to

look after, and you was left to me, so up you get, 'Liza, and let's

thank you kindly, sir, for--I don't like to take money for nothink,

sir, and--perhaps, if you was livin' near here and had the washin'

done at home, you'd like me to take home a prop or two, and

half-a-dozen pegs, sir."

THOMAS ARCHER.

A GAME FOR LONG EVENINGS.

Those who learn drawing will find the game of "Positions" a

particularly pleasant pastime for the long evenings. Any number can

play the game--the more the merrier. All the players seat themselves

round the table, and each one must be supplied with small pieces of

white paper, about two inches square, and a pencil--or, better still,

a pen and ink. All the players, except one, then silently resolve on

some position in life which it is possible for them to fill, and each

makes some sign of their "Position" by sketching a little picture of

some article connected with their proposed trade or business on one

of the blank pieces of paper. The name of each sketcher should be

written on his paper. Five minutes are allowed for the sketching, the

time being kept by the player who has not selected a "Position." All

the illustrated papers are then passed in order round the table, so

that each may view the others' pictures; but no one is supposed to

criticise them aloud. Lastly they are handed to the "Guesser" (who,

up to this point, has taken no active part in the game, except to

time the five minutes), and he ranges them in order before him

according to the order in which the players are seated at the table.

He looks at them attentively and then proceeds to guess from the

pictures what are the intended "Positions" of each person. Supposing

that there were three players, and each one drew a sketch, say of a

house, a pear, and a crown respectively. The Guesser looking at them

would have no difficulty in pronouncing (1) landlord, (2)

greengrocer, (3) king. If she fail to guess any of the "Positions,"

the first person at whom he or she stopped is chosen Guesser for the

next time; if there has been no failure, the player on the right hand

of the Guesser takes the privilege. The principal object of this game

is for each player to try who can make the best sketch in five

minutes, and the next object is to puzzle the Guesser.

THE RIVAL KINGS.

(A FABLE IN FOUR SITUATIONS.)

SITUATION FIRST.

"I have only one ambition in this world," said King Albus, addressing

the feathered members of his household, "only _one_ ambition."

"And what is that?" said the oldest and the fattest hen, sidling up

to him.

"My ambition is," replied the king, strutting about the yard, and

looking as haughty and as full of fight as only a Spanish cock can,

"to see my detested rival over the fence yonder humbled in the dust."

"You've often said that," remarked the old hen.

"Yes," continued the king, "I mean to do it, too; and his lifeless

body shall float down the mill-stream as helpless as a ball of

worsted. I have said, and I will do."

"Well, dear," the hen said; "don't forget that King Crèvecœur is a

powerful big bird."

"King Crèvecœur! Crève _cur_ I call him. Deprive him of his

diphthong, when speaking of him to me, madam, please."

"Well, diphthong, or not diphthong," sang the old hen, picking up a

small pebble, and swallowing it, "he is big, and he wears a pair of

frightfully long spurs."

"And what a charming plume he has on his head!" cried a young hen;

"he looks quite soldierly. Belongs to the dragoons, I suppose."

"Hold your tongue," exclaimed the king; "and go about your business.

Plume, indeed! spurs forsooth! The plume, madam, is an airy nothing;

the spurs have neither strength nor substance. Now, look at me," this

proud king went on, as he flew up on top of an old hurdle, "behold

me well. Am I not as white as the driven snow? Is not my comb as red

and rosy as crimson daisies, or the sunset's glow at dewy eve?"

"Cock-a-doodle--doodle--do--o! Did ever you hear such a crow as that

before?"

"Never," said the old hen.

"Except----" said the young one.

The king looked at her, and she was silent. But just at that moment

came a voice from the other side of the old fence, that fairly

startled every hen in King Albus's household. Shrill, defiant,

terrible!

"Cock-a-doodle--roaro--ro--o!" went the voice.

"That is he!" cried the king. "That is more of his audacity! It is

unbearable. I will stand it no longer. I will instantly give him

battle. Farewell, and if for ever--still for ever, fare-ye-well."

"Stay with us, stay with us, stay--stay--stay," cried all the hens in

cackling chorus.

"Never," cried the king; "while Crève _cur_ lives! Cock-a-doodle--do!

Death or victory!"

He sprang over the fence as he spoke.

[Illustration: "THE KING HAD CROSSED THE RUBICON."]

SITUATION SECOND.

The king had crossed the Rubicon. There was no going back with honour

now. He was fairly over the fence, and in the domains of the rival

king.

King Albus bent his wattles to the ground, and gazed at his rival

with one eye. His rival's back was turned towards him, and he took

not the slightest notice of the king.

"I wonder if he'll fight!" said the king to himself. "For my part I

hope he won't, for I don't feel half so full of courage on this side

of the fence as I did on the other. I daren't go back, though. How

the young hens would giggle if I did, and how the old ones would

cackle! No!"

All this time King Albus never moved; he still held his wattles close

to the ground, and still looked at his rival with one eye, only

sometimes he turned his head and looked with the other.

"He is pretending not to see me," he continued.

"He is afraid. I'll wager my wattles he's afraid. But--what?--do my

eyes deceive me? No, he really has two lovely pure--white hens lying

beside him. That seals his fate. If any one in the world ought to

have white hens as companions, it is myself, because I am pure white.

So he must die."

Now, although King Crèvecœur's back was turned to his rival, he could

see him with the side of his eye, and besides, his two hens told him

what the silly old Spaniard was doing.

"He's afraid to come on, I think," said one.

"Don't be too hard on him," said the other.

"A deal depends," replied Crèvecœur, shaking his head. "I have never

insulted him; I can't help being bigger and handsomer and richer than

he is; he has no right to go on envying me as he does. He deserves to

be punished. He is mean, that is what he is. Stop, I'll give him a

little encouragement--Cock-a-doodle-do-o!"

"It needed but that," cried King Albus.

He advanced speedily as he spoke, along by the side of the mill lead.

"Run away, my dears," said the Crève to his two hens, "the battle is

about to commence."

One hen went; the other declared she would stand by him as long as

she lived.

Now, it was a very remarkable thing, but no sooner had King Albus got

close up behind King Crève, and was just about to strike the blow,

that might or might not have both begun and ended the fight, than

all his courage at once oozed out at his toes, and he really didn't

feel he had pluck enough to raise his foot to strike, or even to keep

his tail erect.

"I feel very faint," he said to himself, "I think I'll just take a

run home and have a few crumbs of food, and then come back again."

He turned as he spoke and began to move off.

"Cock-a-doodle-do-o-o!" roared the cock with the plumes.

[Illustration: "HE BEGAN TO MOVE OFF" (_p. 277_).]

SITUATION THIRD.

Now, this was more than the meanest-spirited cock that ever crowed

could stand.

He raised his tail again, wheeled suddenly round and faced his foe.

The other cock or king also wheeled round, and so with ruffles raised

and wings half spread, and with fire flashing from their eyes, the

two confronted each other.

But courage now deserted the heart of the white hen, and she fled.

"Cray--cray--cray," she screamed; "there'll be bloodshed,

cray--cray--cray!"

"Have you made your will?" cried the white king, fiercely. "Are you

prepared for a watery grave?"

"As to my will," replied the dark king, "there'll be plenty of time

to think about that when you're dead. As to the watery grave, I'm

quite ready for it, as soon as I meet any one who has the strength

and courage to send me there. It won't be you."

"You may imagine yourself dead already," roared the white king. "Your

body will go floating down the mill-stream, and there won't be a

feather of you left together an hour after this--the frogs and fish

will eat you."

[Illustration: "COME ON AND FIGHT IF YOU DARE."]

"Fish and frogs!" cried King Crève, "fiddlesticks! Come on and fight

if you dare. I'll give you leave to strike the first blow."

Then the white cock grew very sentimental.

"I don't really want to kill you," he said; "it seems a pity."

"Can nought but blood our feud atone,

Are there no means?"

"No, stranger, none!"

"Now just look here," said the dark king. "What _are_ you talking

about? If you mean to fight--fight. If you don't mean to fight--go

over the fence again."

"But I want to have something to say to you," cried King Albus.

"Well then, out with it. I'm not going to stand here palavering all

day, with my feathers up like a ruffed grouse. I'm catching cold, I

am. I'll go to work to warm myself presently, and it will be a bad

thing for you when I do."

"What d'ye mean by being bigger than me, then?" said the white cock.

"Oh! that's your grievance, is it?"

"Yes, and what d'ye mean by crowing louder every morning, and wearing

that silly old plume on top o' your poll, and those stupid long spurs

on your heels, eh?"

"Anything else?"

"Ye-s--What d'ye mean by having more oats to eat than me? And more

hens to walk about and sing to ye, eh?"

"Oh! You envious silly old thing, you," cried King Crève. "Go home at

once, and learn to live a better life, do."

"Not till I've killed King Cur."

SITUATION FOURTH AND LAST.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

They were at it now spur and bill. The sound of the blows went

echoing all over the farmyards where they lived. Whack! Whack! Whack!

Dear me, how the feathers flew!

"My brave!" cried the fat old hen, "I never thought there was so much

courage in him before!"

"Wait a bit," cried the saucy young one. "Plumes will give him a

lesson presently."

"Plumes won't," shrieked the other.

"Plumes _will_" roared the young one. And lo! and behold those two

hens got fighting behind the fence--so foolish of them--and thus

there were two battles raging at one and the same time.

Now sometimes, right is might, but in this case right and might were

both on the same side. For King Albus had no business to be so

envious and jealous of his neighbour, simply because he was better

than he; and he was certainly very wrong to invade his territory. If

he had only stayed at home, and been content with his own

surroundings, he might have lived and been happy for many a long day.

To do the white king justice, however, he fought well. Though a

coward at heart, now that he found himself really engaged, he knew

that to give in would mean being trodden to death under the feet of

his foe. So he fought on and on.

Both shortly paused for breath, and the white king began turning over

the gravel with his bill, as if looking for a grub or two. This was

merely a pretence, in order to gain time, and the dark king knew that

well enough.

"Don't be silly," he said, tantalisingly, "grubs don't grow in the

gravel. I don't believe you could swallow a grub if you had one. Go

home now, and come back again when your poor old head is healed."

"I'll heal you!" roared King Albus, "I'll grub you!"

Then the battle re-commenced with re-doubled fury.

But it did not last much longer. The dark king watched his chance,

and bringing all his strength to bear on one blow, sent his adversary

sprawling and roaring for mercy right into the mill-stream.

Then he jumped nimbly on top of him and crowed.

[Illustration: "ROARING FOR MERCY."]

His weight sank his foe, he gave a gasp or two, then away he floated

still and quiet enough, while the dark king jumped on shore, and

coolly began to re-arrange his ruffled plumage, his two hens soon

returning to admire him.

"I told you," cried the young hen, "that Plumes would kill him."

"Ah! well," said the fat old hen, "such things will happen, you know.

It can't be helped. It's a pity, of course. But he was always rather

haughty and overbearing, and envious too; and if there is one feeling

more distasteful to me than another it is _Envy_."

ARION.

LITTLE MARGARET'S KITCHEN, AND WHAT SHE DID IN IT.--XI.

_By_ Phillis Browne, _Author of "A Year's Cookery," "What Girls can

Do," &c._

"How clear and bright the fire is, Mary," said Margaret, when she

came into the kitchen, and found Mary already busy setting plates and

dishes to warm, rubbing the gridiron, and placing everything in

readiness for the lesson in Cookery.

"Yes, Miss Margaret, it _is_ bright, and I made it so," said Mary,

with pride in her voice. "Mistress said we were to learn to broil

to-day, so I came here in good time, cleared away the dust, put on

some coal, and swept up the hearth; and now how hot and clear the

fire is; exactly the fire for broiling, I know."

"You seem to know all about it before you are taught, Mary."

"I am not so clever as that comes to, miss. But I know that for

broiling you need a bright hot fire without blaze, and that you need

to have everything quite ready before you begin to cook at all,

because when you have once made a start you cannot leave the broil to

attend to anything; so I thought it was as well to be prepared

before-hand."

"Why are you rubbing the gridiron so hard then? Was it not cleaned

the last time it was used?"

"Of course it was cleaned; but aunt says that no matter how clean a

gridiron looks, we should always give it an extra rub before using

it, 'for safety,' and that then we should make it hot over the fire,

and afterwards rub the bars with mutton-fat to grease them, and keep

the meat from sticking to the bars. But here comes mistress."

"You appear to be cooking without my help to-day," said Mrs. Herbert,

smiling, as she looked round and saw what had been done.

"No, ma'am. I have finished all I know," said Mary.

"Then let me tell you a little more. Broiling is a very convenient

way of cooking meat, because it is very quick, and it makes meat very

tasty and very wholesome. I should like you to understand it,

therefore. It is only suitable, however, for small things, such as

chops, and steaks, and kidneys, and fish. To-day we will broil a

steak."

"The gridiron is greased ready, ma'am," interrupted Mary.

"Quite right. I am glad to see it, Mary. This should always be done.

But now notice. This steak, though I call it small, is still cut

fairly thick--it is nearly an inch thick. If it were cut in a thin

slice, to broil it would make it hard and dry, and we wish it to be

brown and well cooked on the outside, and tender and juicy inside. I

wonder if you recollect what I said when we first began these lessons

in Cookery about making a case on the outside of the meat to keep the

goodness inside?"

"I recollect it quite well," said Mary.

"So do I," said Margaret. "We put the leg of mutton into boiling

water for five minutes to cook the albumen on the outside of the

meat, which is like white of egg, to form a sort of case; and when

the case was formed we drew the meat back and let it simmer till it

was gently cooked all through."

"Excellent, Margaret. I think my small pupils do me great credit. As

in boiling meat we put the meat into boiling water, to harden the

albumen, so in broiling meat we put the meat near a fierce heat to

harden the albumen; and we turn the meat quickly so that the albumen

may be hardened on one side as well as the other. Now you know what

we have to do. Shall we begin?"

"Yes, please," answered the little girls, both together.

"You are quite ready? Because when once we have begun to broil we

must not try to attend to anything else till we have finished."

"We are quite ready," replied the children.

"Then, Mary, as you have done so much in preparing for us, you begin.

Put the steak on the hot greased gridiron--never mind the flare which

comes almost at once; it will not hurt us at this stage. If later it

gets unmanageable we will sprinkle a little salt on the fire, and

that will keep it down.

"May I turn it, mother?" said Margaret.

"Yes, dear. Stop, stop, though; what are you about, child? Surely you

are not going to put a fork into the lean part of the steak."

"I was, though, mother. How shall I take hold of it if I do not?"

"With the steak-tongs. Or if they are not at hand, use a spoon and

the flat side of a knife. But on no account stick a fork into the

lean. We are taking ever so much care to keep the juices in, and if

you stick a fork in you let them out most abundantly. It would not be

so mischievous to stick the fork into the fat, but to stick it into

the lean! Oh, Margaret!"

"I am very sorry, mother, I will never do it again."

"Never do it, dear, no matter how you are cooking the meat, that is,

of course, unless you wish to get the goodness out; that will alter

the state of the case altogether."

"Is it time to turn the steak again, mother?"

"Yes, dear. Turn it quickly, because by so doing you make both sides

brown, and that keeps in the juice. It is very curious how people who

are clever in Cookery differ about whether or not meat which is being

broiled should be turned. I say most decidedly, turn it frequently.

First make one side brown as quickly as you can, then the other, and

after that turn it every two minutes."

"You have to keep on watching it, though," said Margaret.

"Of course you have. I told you so at the beginning."

"It begins to smell very deliciously," said Mary.

"So it does, Mary. I think broiling is one of the most perfect ways

of cooking, though it is so simple and easily managed, and so quick

also."

"Is it quick, mother? How long does it take? A quarter of an hour to

the pound?"

"No, dear, you cannot count the time in that way, it is not safe. You

must learn to know by the look and the touch of the meat whether it

is done or not. This steak takes about twelve minutes you will find,

but then Mary had taken care to have the fire clear and fierce, and

the steak was cut evenly. Press the meat with the flat blade of a

knife to find whether it is done. You will, after trying once or

twice, know how it feels when it is sufficiently cooked. It should be

nearly black outside and the inside should be red all the way

through. There should not be a blue line of raw meat in the

middle--that is quite wrong.

"I don't like red underdone meat," said Margaret. "I cannot eat it."

"A broiled steak is not red because it is under-dressed; it is red

because it is full of gravy. Now our steak is done, I think. Press it

with the knife that you may know how it feels."

The little girls pressed it, and looked very wise.

"The plates have been warming for such a long time, that I cannot

take hold of them," said Mary.

"That is as they should be. They ought to be very hot indeed for a

broil."

"Mother, how many more lessons in Cookery have we?"

"Only one, dear. Your holidays are almost over."

"May we choose what we will make next time, mother?"

"I am rather afraid to promise for fear you should choose something

unlikely--a wedding-cake for instance."

"We were going to choose a wedding-cake, mother."

"I would rather you dismissed it from your thoughts, my little

daughter. A wedding-cake costs a good deal to begin with; it is not

particularly wholesome food. I could not let you eat more than an

inch or two, for fear you should be ill. Think of something else."

"Very well, mother. We will think it thoroughly over; and if we

choose something reasonable, and not unwholesome, may we make what we

wish, just to finish up well?"

"Yes, that I will readily agree to," said Mrs. Herbert, and the

children went away contented.

(_To be continued._)

LEGENDS OF THE FLOWERS.

THE SUNFLOWER.

Where hollyhocks lift their blossoms gay,

And dahlias show their velvet dyes,

The Sunflower in its flaming pride

With them in gorgeous beauty vies.

Proudly it turns towards the sun,

And lifts aloft its golden shield,

As in the day when first its bloom

To wondering Spaniards was revealed.

For, when the Spaniards found Peru,

A marvel there they did behold,

The fields with Sunflowers covered o'er

Seemed like a living sheet of gold.

No wonder that Peruvian priests,

Who worshipped the Sun-god, should take

The Sunflower for their chosen flower,

And hold it sacred for his sake.

Each holy priestess of the Sun

A glittering golden breast-plate wore,

Fashioned to semblance of the flower,

That also in her hand she bore.

And though in lands far from Peru

A home the Sunflower bright hath found,

It worships still the sun, as when

The Spaniards trod Peruvian ground.

THEIR ROAD TO FORTUNE.

THE STORY OF TWO BROTHERS.

_By the Author of "The Heir of Elmdale," &c. &c._

CHAPTER XIII.--MR. GREGORY'S OPINION.

"What do you generally have for your luncheon?" Mr. Murray said, as

he led the way to the dining-room. "Something good, I've no doubt.

Now, just you tell me what it is."

"Well, sir, a Bath bun and a glass of milk," Bertie replied, looking

vainly round the enormous table in search of his favourite dainty.

"Then I'm afraid you must manage with a cutlet to-day," Mr. Murray

said, with one of his peculiar smiles, "or some cold roast beef, or

ham and chicken," glancing from one to another of the dishes that

adorned the table. "Really, boy, I'm afraid we have not such a thing

as a Bath bun in the house, or within a quarter of a mile of us; but

a glass of milk I dare say James can find you, unless you would

prefer some claret and water."

"No, thank you, sir; but plain water will do very well," Bertie

replied, feeling a little confused.

"Do you never drink wine of any kind at your Uncle Gregory's?"

[Illustration: "HE TURNED HIS BULL'S-EYE ON BERTIE" (_p. 285_).]

"No, sir; papa made Eddie and I promise we would never even taste it

till we grew to be men, and we never have. He said that then we would

like it so little that we would not care if we never tasted it a

second time."

"He was quite right, boy. And now tell me why you refused my

invitation. Were you afraid of offending your uncle?"

"No, sir."

"What, then?" Mr. Murray said, looking stern. "Tell me just the

truth."

"I don't think my cousins wanted us to go; I felt that they wouldn't

have been kind to us; and I am sure Aunt Gregory would have been

displeased. I did not think we should have been happy, sir, I'm sure

Eddie would have been miserable after what he said."

"What did Eddie say?" Mr. Murray asked.

"If you please, sir, I'd rather not tell you: he wouldn't like it,"

Bertie replied, looking quite troubled at the turn the conversation

was taking.

"But I want to know, and I must know; tell me this moment what Eddie

said. Am I not your father's old friend? Go on, boy."

Mr. Murray looked so angry, and his eyes flashed so under his shaggy

knitted brows, that Bertie was quite frightened.

"Eddie said he did not like being poor or seeing people who knew him

when he was rich; and he's so clever and so proud; and he would be so

miserable if the boys treated him as they do me. So I thought if I

came back to town they wouldn't go without me," Bertie said

hurriedly. "And now, sir, please may I go back? Uncle will be so

angry; he says all office time belongs to him, and any one who wastes

a moment of it, or is late, or leaves before the clock strikes, is a

thief!" Bertie's voice fell to an awed whisper, and his ruddy cheeks

grew quite pale at the bare idea of being thought dishonest, and yet

he knew that Mr. Gregory would not spare him a bit more than any one

else; and it was half-past two, and Bertie was due back at one

o'clock.

"Do you think your time belongs to your uncle?" Mr. Murray asked

suddenly.

"Yes, sir, of course; he pays me," Bertie replied. "Please may I go

now?"

"One moment. Tell me what reward you expect for having brought that

bag here to-day."

"Reward!" Bertie stammered, looking the very picture of confusion. "I

don't know what you mean. The bag was not mine, and I managed to give

it back to the person it belonged to: that's all, sir. Why should I

be rewarded? But the cabman was so grateful, he said, 'Heaven bless

the gentleman! he's done a better turn than he knew to-day;' and he

kissed the sovereign, sir; and I'm sure there were tears in his eyes,

because he said----" Bertie stopped suddenly; perhaps he had no right

to repeat the cabby's words, spoken under the influence of sudden and

joyful excitement; but Mr. Murray commanded him to go on. "Because he

said, 'My poor wife is dyin', and this 'ere precious sov will let me

go right 'ome, and spend the rest of the day with her. Heaven bless

the gentleman!' Oh, he did look so happy!" and Bertie's own eyes

filled with sympathetic tears, though his lips smiled. "I don't think

I shall mind Uncle Gregory's scolding a bit when I think of the poor

cabby's happiness," he added.

"Bertie, a truly good and honest action is like a pebble thrown in a

pool of water: at first it makes a little splash that is not of much

account, but the tiny circle widens and widens, till the whole

surface is influenced. Life is a limitless pool. Do you know where

the circle you started to-day may end? No; neither do I; no human

being knows, but God does. Already it has benefited me a little, that

unhappy clerk who lost the bag a great deal, that poor cabby with his

dying wife a great deal more. Who knows how many more innocent and

perfectly unconscious people may have been influenced by the

accident, if, indeed, there is such a thing as accident in this world

of ours. Just think for one moment what would have been the result if

you had carried that bag to your office, put it in your desk, and

never said a word about it till to-morrow morning, when there would

perhaps have been an advertisement in _The Times_, offering fifty

pounds reward. You might have got the money and been happy, and five

thousand people might have been miserable for life. Such was the

importance of those papers. Now, my carriage is at the door, and I'll

set you down in the City. Tell your uncle the exact truth, and always

act, Bertie Rivers, as you did to-day, honestly and _promptly_: not

because it may benefit yourself, but because it's sure to have a

beneficial influence on every one else. Remember the pebble and the

pool."

Mr. Murray did not speak another word till they reached the top of

Mincing Lane; there the carriage stopped and Bertie got out, but in

spite of all the kind things the old gentleman had said, in spite of

the consciousness of having done quite right from one point of view,

in spite of his real pleasure on the clerk's and the cabby's account,

he felt positively nervous about entering the presence of his uncle,

and actually loitered outside for fully five minutes before venturing

to push back the swing doors, and enter the outer office of Gregory

and Co. He fancied all the clerks were looking at him in surprised

compassion, though in reality not one of them had noticed him, and if

they had, they would only think he had been sent on an errand by his

uncle. With a loudly-beating heart he entered his uncle's room fairly

trembling in every limb, the ominous silence of every one having

completely terrified him.

Mr. Gregory was writing, and only raised his eyes for one moment as

Bertie took his seat, but he looked very stern, and without doubt

there would be a storm in a few moments, for Bertie was not a

stranger to the rigid rules of the office. At the end of ten minutes

the busy pen was laid aside, a heap of letters pushed into the

basket, and by a motion of his hand Mr. Gregory summoned his nephew

to stand before him.

"You are just two hours and a quarter late," he said, glancing at his

watch. "Will you kindly explain to me where you have been and what

you have been doing?"

"Yes, Uncle Gregory;" and in a very quavering voice Bertie recounted

every incident that occurred from the moment he left the office for

luncheon till he returned, dwelling least on his interview with Mr.

Murray and most on the necessity of overtaking the gentleman who had

lost the bag. He then explained what he had heard in the train in the

morning, and how important it was that the papers should be signed at

once. But Mr. Gregory's face grew graver and sterner as he listened,

and instead of praising Bertie, he looked as if he could have

cheerfully given him a good thrashing.

"You should have brought that bag to me, sir; you should have

remembered that during office hours your time is mine. I am very

angry with you, Herbert Rivers, and, what is still worse, very much

disappointed. I imagined that you were a steady, straightforward boy,

who meant to profit by the exceptional opportunities given you. I

fancied you were worthy of the kindness I have bestowed upon you, and

I find you a clever, artful, designing creature. Why did you say you

preferred to come back to business instead of going with your

cousins? why did you come, boy? To cross, thwart, annoy me? In my

opinion, you came simply to ingratiate yourself with Mr. Murray, and

your conduct to-day has proved it. Why should you find his papers?

Why should you take them to him instead of to me--your uncle and

guardian, as well as your master? I tell you again that it's my

opinion you are a bad, artful designing boy, and I'm very sorry I

ever set your foot on the high road to fortune, for I'm sadly afraid

you will turn out a disgrace to me some day!"

"Not so bad as that, Gregory, I hope," Mr. Murray said, entering the

room; he had been standing in the doorway unnoticed for some minutes,

and overheard a good deal of the conversation. "Your nephew is not

going to disgrace you, because he did what was clearly his duty in a

very clever way. Cheer up, Bertie; your uncle will have a better

opinion of you presently."

For answer, Bertie hid his face amongst the circulars on his desk,

and burst into a passionate fit of crying, none the less bitter

because his uncle sternly commanded him to be quiet, and carry a note

to a gentleman in Threadneedle Street, and wait for an answer.

Meanwhile Mr. Murray sat down, as if he meant to have a long

conversation with Mr. Gregory, who looked as if he most cordially

wished his visitor sixty miles away, as he thought him in reality to

be, before he had heard Bertie's curious story.

CHAPTER XIV.--BERTIE IN DIFFICULTIES.

When he left the office on his uncle's errand, Bertie Rivers felt

very miserable. For a minute he seemed almost stunned by his uncle's

words, "A disgrace!" Was it possible that merely doing right ever

could bring disgrace to anybody? if so, what was the good of doing

right at all? But then, Mr. Murray had commended him, had said right

always helped the largest number of people, though one might

sometimes suffer; but even in a good cause to be called artful,

designing, to be suspected of trying to make friends with Mr. Murray,

and leading his uncle to suppose that he did not want to even accept

his invitation, was too bitterly hard, and for the first time in his

life Bertie felt as if he must throw himself down by the wayside, and

sob his sorrow out to some one.

"Oh, if I could only see Aunt Amy!" he said aloud as he toiled up the

stairs to the address on the note in his hand. "If I could only tell

her all!" and then, as the gentleman was out and he was desired to

wait, he sat on a form on the landing, and while seeming to watch the

never-ending crowd of passers-by in Threadneedle Street, he was

really thinking, "I must see my Aunt Amy. I must, _I must, I must_!"

The passing cabs attuned themselves to the words, the newspaper-boys,

crying "Evening Paper, fourth edition," the flower-sellers, the

sellers of mechanical toys, revolving purses, performing mice, and

other living and dead monstrosities that haunt the vicinity of the

Stock Exchange and Bank, all seemed to "cry" the same thing to

Bertie, "I must see Aunt Amy. _I must, I must, I must!_"

Till four o'clock Bertie sat patiently waiting for an answer to his

note, then the _commissionaire_ came and told him that there was no

chance of the gentleman he wanted being there that day; so he went

back to Mincing Lane, only to find the office shut up, and then, for

the first time, he glanced at a clock, and saw that it was a quarter

after four. He had no very definite idea of how the time had gone,

but the one uppermost idea still in his mind was to get to Aunt Amy,

and tell her all his troubles, and ask her if she thought he had been

so very much to blame.

[Illustration: "BERTIE WAS IN HER ARMS IN A MOMENT" (_p. 288_).]

At length Bertie started to walk home; he had no ticket, for he had

gone to the office with his uncle before his holiday; and he had no

money: his last penny had been spent at Brighton, and Mr. Gregory had

not remembered to give him his usual weekly allowance; but there was

the savings' bank: he could get some of his own money and go to see

Aunt Amy at once. But the "book" was at Kensington, he remembered,

and he called to mind, too, that the people at the Post Office wanted

notice before paying any deposits, so that would not do. In his sore

trouble and impatience he wanted to rush off to the station that

moment, and even an express train would be far too slow for his

wishes. As he walked towards Kensington he kept thinking all the time

how he was to get the money. Whom could he ask to help him? But he

did not ask any one, and at last, weary with his walk and his

troubled thoughts, hot and dusty, he turned into the Park, and threw

himself on the grass in the quietest spot he could find. He was close

to Kensington Gardens, and a few minutes would bring him home; but

Bertie felt as if he must have a rest before the duties of the

evening commenced. For the first time in his life his work seemed

distasteful to him, and the idea of being shut up alone with his

uncle in the library after what had taken place was almost

unbearable. If he only could get away to Aunt Amy and tell her all,

it would be such a comfort. Once he pulled out his watch, and for a

moment thought of selling it, then with a start he remembered that it

was his dear father's last present. Above all things, he could not

part with that. It really seemed as if there were no resource but to

wait till he got his money from the savings' bank, and by that time

Aunt Amy would be just about returning to Fitzroy Square.

"I suppose I may as well wait, and be as patient as I can," he mused;

"besides, Uncle Gregory may think differently after what Mr. Murray

said to him to-day;" and then he turned over lazily on the grass,

pulled his hat over his eyes, and in a very few minutes was sound

asleep. He was very tired, and fairly worn out with the excitement as

well as the fatigue of the long summer's day, and he slept heavily.

How long he did not know, when he started to his feet suddenly, to

find himself quite damp from a heavy dew, chilled, stiff, sore, and,

worst of all, hungry. The park was quite deserted and very dark,

still he knew his way tolerably well, and hurried towards the gate,

shivering partly with cold, partly with nervousness, at finding

himself quite alone in the dark--everything was so gloomy and weird.

When he reached the gates he was really frightened to find them

locked, and to see by the lamplight that it was just eleven o'clock.

What would Uncle Gregory say when he got home? How was he to get home

unless some one came and let him out? for though a tolerably skilful

climber, Bertie felt that great swing gate was beyond him; he did not

like to venture over the sharp spikes at the top, even if he could

get so high. For a few minutes he called loudly, but no one took the

least notice, and he was becoming more and more frightened when he

saw the friendly gleam of a policeman's lantern. It was some time

before he could attract his attention, and when he did the man spoke

quite gruffly, and threatened him with all sorts of pains and

penalties for being in the park after hours.

"I couldn't help it, indeed!" Bertie cried, earnestly. "I was so

tired that I fell asleep, and uncle will be dreadfully anxious about

me. Oh, do please find some one to let me out!"

"Who's your uncle? and where does he live?" the policeman said, a

little less gruffly, for as he turned his bull's-eye on Bertie he saw

he was not a common offender, but a handsome young gentleman, who

looked in real, not sham, trouble.

"My uncle is Mr. Gregory, and he lives in Gore House, just close by.

Oh, do please, get me out! he will be so anxious!"

The policeman hesitated for a moment, and then directed Bertie to a

part of the railing tolerably easy to climb, from which he assisted

him carefully to get down, and walked with him to Gore House. There

was light in the library and dining-room, but there did not seem to

be any fuss or confusion, and it just struck Bertie that perhaps he

had not been missed at all. His uncle had seemed very preoccupied

all day; perhaps he had forgotten all about him since the time he had

sent him to Threadneedle Street. As it happened, that was just the

case. Mr. Gregory did not come home till late, when he was

accompanied by Mr. Murray; and immediately after dinner both

gentlemen went into the library, and had remained there ever since.

It was as James the footman opened the door, and the policeman and

Bertie entered the hall, that Mr. Gregory and Mr. Murray entered it

too from the library.

"I wish you would let me order the carriage," Mr. Gregory was saying,

when he stopped suddenly and hurried forward. "What's all this?

Bertie Rivers and a policeman! What has he been doing?" he asked, in

a tone that made the hearers think he was almost glad to see his

nephew in difficulties.

"There's not much amiss, sir," the policeman answered respectfully.

"This young gentleman says he was tired, and fell asleep in the park.

Of course he got locked in, and I helped him out. That's all, sir;

unless he has got cold from sleeping on the grass."

"Why were you in the park? why did not you come straight home? Give

an account of yourself," Mr. Gregory said sternly.

"I went to Threadneedle Street, sir, and waited for an answer, as you

told me, but the gentleman did not come in; then I went back to

Mincing Lane, but the office was shut, and I walked home."

"Why did you walk?" Mr. Gregory interrupted.

"I had no money, sir," Bertie replied defiantly; "and I thought I was

to return with you, but you were gone."

"Well, why didn't you come straight home? Why did you loiter in the

park? I don't believe a word you have said!"

"He was in the park right enough, sir. I seed him there and helped

him out; and any one as walked from the City might fall asleep

without much blame on an afternoon like the one to-day," the

policeman said, feeling a little indignant at Bertie's reception, and

perhaps disappointed at the poor prospect of reward for himself.

"Get about your business!" Mr. Gregory said shortly, and the man

turned aside with a muttered exclamation, but Bertie seized his hand

and thanked him warmly, and Mr. Murray just then contrived to slip a

more tangible reward into his other hand. Then the old gentleman

turned to Bertie, and patted him kindly on the shoulder. "Why, dear

me, boy! you are quite wet," he cried, starting back, "and you are as

white as anything. Had you any dinner? of course not; nor any tea?

how very tiresome of you! But then you had no money, and you came up

from Brighton this morning, and had a tiresome, exciting day. Better

you went in the yacht, boy, far better and pleasanter; and your uncle

could have done very well without you;" and Mr. Murray frowned and

chuckled in the most extraordinary way as he pushed Bertie before him

into the dining-room, and rang the bell just as if the whole place

belonged to him, while Mr. Gregory immediately followed, looking very

dark and stern.

"James, get this boy a cup of hot cocoa and some cold meat directly,

and tell some one to prepare a warm bath for him; and you must give

him a holiday to-morrow, Mr. Gregory. He should stay in bed all the

day if he's to escape a violent cold. Now I must be off. Good night;

good night, boy; take great care of yourself, you are very fortunate

that you didn't have to sleep in the park all night."

And with another friendly pat on the shoulder, Mr. Murray departed,

leaving Bertie drinking his cocoa with evident enjoyment, and Mr.

Gregory frowning with annoyance.

In more ways, and more seriously than he knew, Bertie had caused his

uncle loss and disappointment that day, and Mr. Gregory was not

inclined to forgive him very easily; least of all was he disposed to

overlook the sudden interest taken in him by Mr. Murray, and the

conversation that afternoon at the office, and in the evening at Gore

House, had been chiefly about the two boys whom fortune had thrown on

the world so young, and so little able to help themselves. Mr. Murray

asked persistently if something better could not be done for them.

Mr. Gregory maintained that they were both well and generously

treated, but Bertie's white woe-begone face and evident fear of his

uncle spoke little for the happiness of his life in Gore House; and

as he walked home in the quiet, sultry August night, Mr. Murray

sketched out a plan which he thought would please the boys, and make

life more pleasant for the sons of his dead friend, but it would take

some time and trouble to mature, and then both boys would have to be

fully tried and tested before the idea was made known to them. "I

have no fear about Bertie: he's a brave, bright, truthful lad; even

the vague suspicion of being false cuts him like a knife. No man

should say he doesn't believe a boy like that without positive proof.

As for his brother--well, I'm afraid he's a difficult youngster to

manage, but he's all right at the bottom. I have no doubt he will

stand the test too; and the sooner we get poor Bertie out of his

difficulties the better it will be for him."

CHAPTER XV.--BAD NEWS FROM BRIGHTON.

When Mr. Murray left the dining-room at Gore House, Mr. Gregory

followed him as far as the hall door, then he returned for a moment,

and looked at Bertie angrily. It seemed as if he were going to say

something of importance, but suddenly checked himself with a hasty

stamp of his foot; then he said, more quietly, "Get to bed as soon as

possible, and be down in good time in the morning, and see that you

don't fall asleep out of doors again," and left the dining-room.

Bertie was not very long after him, and though he felt much better

for his supper, he was still so stiff and chilled that the warm bath

was a real luxury. His head was scarcely on the pillow before he was

sound asleep, but he was troubled and restless, and awoke in the

morning feeling dull and unrefreshed, and with the uncomfortable

sense of something having happened that he vainly tried to recall.

However, he got up and was downstairs before his uncle.

Mr. Gregory spoke to him coldly, without looking up from his pile of

letters, and Bertie ate his breakfast in silence: that is, he drank

his coffee, but food seemed to hurt his throat strangely, and in

spite of the brilliant sunshine, he shivered nervously once or twice.

Just as breakfast was finished there came a telegram for Mr. Gregory,

which, when he had read it, he handed over to Bertie.

The message was from Aunt Amy, saying that Uncle Clair was ill, and

wished to see Bertie, if his Uncle Gregory would permit him to go.

The paper fell from his trembling fingers as he looked at the

unconcerned features of his uncle, and he gasped, rather than asked,

"May I go, sir?"

"Certainly, if you wish it," was the cold reply, "though I fail to

see what possible good you can do. You can come into the City with

me, and go down by the noon express; telegraph to that effect when

you reach the office."

"Thank you, Uncle Gregory; and if you please, will you let me have

some money?" Bertie faltered, blushing, and looking very much

confused. "I'm afraid it would take me too long to get my own out of

the savings' bank."

Mr. Gregory took a sovereign from his pocket. "That will be

sufficient for your expenses. Watts shall get your ticket;" and Mr.

Gregory rose from the table, and rang for his hat and gloves. The

dog-cart was already at the door, and presently Bertie was beside his

uncle driving City-wards.

Mr. Gregory looked very stern and angry, and once or twice seemed on

the point of asking Bertie some questions, but always checked

himself. The fact was, Mr. Gregory felt very curious as to what Mr.

Murray had said to Bertie, whether he had made him any fine promises,

or, in short, shown the lad himself the keen interest that he took in

him, and how resolved he was to do something to alter his condition.

Mr. Gregory had very confidently hoped that one of his own sons would

have been the old gentleman's favourite, and but for the unfortunate

encounter with the Rivers' lads, he felt quite confident that such

would have been the case. Then the finding of the papers and the

immediate return of them annoyed Mr. Gregory very much. If he could

have kept them back for one day it would have been considerably to

his interest; and though he liked and fully appreciated a boy who was

quick to think and prompt to act, he liked the quickness and

promptitude to be for, not against, himself. In fact, though he would

not acknowledge it, even to himself, Mr. Gregory's business affairs

just then were in a very critical condition: during the summer many

of his ventures had failed; many large firms with which he did

business had also failed; and though the credit of his house was as

yet above suspicion, trade was very dull, and matters generally

looked threatening. It was that that caused Mr. Gregory to court an

alliance in any shape with the firm of Murray and Co., that enjoyed a

reputation second only to the Bank of England. With one of his sons

in the office, and treated as the adopted child of the head of the

firm, Mr. Gregory felt as if he could face a financial earthquake;

therefore he did not care to see Bertie rendering important services,

did not care to hear him praised for exceptional business capacity,

least of all did he like to hear his old friend Mr. Murray almost

reproach himself for the lad's dependent position, and say sadly that

in a great measure he was the cause of their father's ruin. Such a

statement from an enormously wealthy, Quixotically generous man meant

possible reparation; there was really no telling what he might not do

for Bertie and Eddie Rivers; so Mr. Gregory determined very

prudently, as he thought, to keep the boys as much as possible out of

the old gentleman's way. Therefore he allowed Bertie to go to

Brighton, with permission to remain as long as his uncle and aunt

required him, and telegraphed to his wife to send his second son Dick

up to town without delay.

"Harry must go to Oxford and get into Parliament," he said to

himself, "and I must sacrifice Dick to his interest and advancement."

It was a singular thing Mr. Gregory never thought it the least

sacrifice to place Bertie Rivers in his office, even when he was

younger and worse educated than his own son. "Bertie is a smart,

industrious lad, with better business capacity than Dick," he

reflected, as he watched Bertie go through his morning's work,

apparently oblivious to everything outside, forgetful of his stiff

limbs, sore throat, hard words, and, worst of all, the terrible

telegram from Brighton; he simply crushed the thoughts down and did

his work steadily, till his uncle told him it was time to go to the

station.

"Good-bye. I hope you will find Mr. Clair better," he said,

ungraciously enough. "Watts, get a hansom, and be quick."

Bertie needed no second bidding to go, and as he left the office it

was with an earnest wish that he might never have to enter it again.

He little knew that his uncle's thoughts at the same moment were, "I

hope he may never come back; or if he does, I hope Dick will be with

Mr. Murray."

That gentleman meantime had driven round to Gore House about eleven

o'clock, with the intention of taking Bertie out for a couple of

hours, and so studying his manners and temper, but to his

astonishment, he learned the boy had driven into town with his uncle,

and was going down to Brighton to see his other uncle, who was

dangerously ill. James had consulted the telegram he found on the

breakfast-table, and from it and the fragments of conversation he

picked up, knew pretty accurately what Master Bertie's movements were

going to be. "He's going down by the twelve train, sir, but he looks

more fit to be in his bed," James continued. "I believe he's caught a

violent cold: he was that hoarse to-day, and his face as white as

milk; and he had no breakfast."

Mr. Murray listened in silence, only nodding his head gravely every

few seconds, then he told his coachman to drive him at once to London

Bridge Station; there he would find out the truth as to whether

Bertie was ill or going to Brighton, and act accordingly. But the

City was very crowded, his carriage frequently got blocked, and he

only reached the station in time to jump into a carriage, where he

fancied he caught a glimpse of Bertie's head in a corner. He had not

even time to get a ticket or give his servants any instructions; but

then, Mr. Murray was known to be eccentric, and he always paid most

liberally for his whims.

Bertie, who was alone in the carriage, looked first surprised, and

then very pleased. He was terribly low-spirited, his head ached, his

throat was sore, worst of all, he was cold, and would probably have

sobbed the whole way to Brighton had he been alone, and so made

himself very ill. But Mr. Murray cheered him up wonderfully, chatted

briskly all the way about everything a boy could be expected to take

an interest in, and in fact made the time pass so pleasantly that

they were at Brighton long before Bertie thought they were half-way.

When they reached the house (for Mr. Murray went too), the blinds

were all down, and that gave Bertie a sudden chill; and as he knocked

at the door he glanced with terrified, appealing eyes at Mr. Murray,

who drew a step nearer, and took Bertie by the hand. It was a firm,

reassuring clasp, and the boy glanced at him gratefully, and when the

door was opened, thus hand in-hand they went upstairs, and were met

just at the drawing-room door by Mrs. Clair. One glance at her face

was sufficient to tell them something dreadful had happened. Bertie

was in her arms in a moment, while Eddie and Agnes--white, wild-eyed,

terror-stricken--clung on either side. It was a heartrending picture

of sorrow and despair, and Mr. Murray could not witness it unmoved.

He just shook hands with Mrs. Clair, whispered a few words that he

would telegraph at once to Mr. Gregory, and would call again in a few

hours, to ask if he could be of any service.

"Remember, my dear Mrs. Clair, you are not alone here. I will see to

everything for you: Rely on me, command me, and remember I was your

brother's dearest friend. I will call as soon as I get Gregory's

answer. By the way, that boy Bertie is very ill; he has a violent

cold, he has eaten nothing to-day, he is very unhappy; if you can,

forget' your own sorrow for an hour in comforting him;" and then Mr.

Murray hurried away, having left a ray of sunshine in a very shady

place, and cheered and comforted Mrs. Clair, who was alone, helpless,

bewildered, in her terrible and sudden affliction. Surely Heaven had

sent her a friend in her direst distress, and she was truly grateful.

(_To be continued._)

THE FOX AND THE FROG.

A Frog had made himself a home in what he considered a very desirable

situation. It was beside a river far away from any human habitations,

so that he had no occasion to fear the incursions of rude boys, of

whom, owing to their stone-throwing propensities, he had a natural

horror.

It was also a very pleasant spot, where reeds and bulrushes and

water-plants protected him from the glare of the sun, whilst before

him the water-lilies spread their broad leaves upon the water. Food

was plentiful in the vicinity, and he congratulated himself upon

having found a place where he could dwell without being subject to

constant alarms.

A fox had on very much the same principle taken up his residence in a

wood near. There were plump young pigeons and hares and rabbits to be

had, and very often he came in for waterfowl by the river.

"And no fear of traps here," said he, "or of boys and men with guns.

It is far too wild a place for them."

So he made himself as comfortable as possible in his den, and enjoyed

himself to his heart's content; never finding it necessary, excepting

in winter-time, to make an expedition to more populated parts, though

at such seasons he was obliged through hunger to journey to the

remote villages for poultry, through scarcity of provisions in his

own parts.

One fine day, as he was sauntering along, he happened to observe a

movement among the rushes, and to hear a strange cry that he had not

heard before.

He paused to listen, and still the sound went on, and still the reeds

swayed to and fro.

"Doubtless a bird," said he. And he cautiously advanced to where the

noise proceeded from.

Now it happened that the frog was splashing about and performing

rotatory movements that caused the swaying of the rushes, and that he

was making a curious singing noise on which he prided himself as

showing his fine voice. Looking up he perceived the great sharp face

of the fox peering down upon him. Not that the fox was looking at

him, for he had not perceived him, his thoughts being occupied with

the fine young waterfowl he hoped to find there.

The frog, however, made up his mind at once that the fox had come

after him.

"Such a fine young frog as I am," he exclaimed, "is never safe for a

moment," and with a loud croak of terror he plunged into the water

and swam away, determined to put a safe distance between himself and

his pursuer.

The fox looked over the rushes, and seeing the frog swimming as for

life, laughed quietly to himself.

"How people magnify their own importance!" said he; "as if I were

troubling myself to come after him! I was hoping to find prey of a

very superior description."

J. G.

[Illustration: THE FOX AND THE FROG. (_See p. 288._)]

THE CHILDREN'S OWN GARDEN IN NOVEMBER.

November is a month of very great dulness in Gardening matters, from

a practical point of view, and will probably fully justify the

epithet of "gloomy" so often applied to it. Familiar floral faces

which have been for the past several months brightening us with their

cheerful looks have now vanished, and we once more witness Nature in

her winter aspect. "A garden," says Douglas Jerrold, "is a beautiful

book, writ by the finger of God; every flower and leaf is a letter.

You have only to learn them--and he is a poor dunce that cannot, if

he will, do that--to learn them, and join them, and go on reading and

reading, and you will find yourself carried away from the earth by

the beautiful story you are going through."

* * * * *

One of the best occupations which we can recommend to our young

readers during winter evenings is the perusal of various elementary

books on gardening, and a few of the best seed catalogues which are

issued every spring. Those containing plenty of illustrations should

be preferred, as a figure, even if badly executed, will convey a far

better idea of a plant than the most elaborate of descriptions. We

would, however, remark that mere reading, no matter how wide and

varied, will by no means constitute any one a good or even

indifferent gardener where experience and knowledge are not acquired

by practice. It is probably true that a poet must be _born_ such; but

the case is just the reverse with a gardener, who must in fact be

made one.

* * * * *

The present month is one of the best for making additions to our

little folk's gardens in the matter of nearly all sorts of hardy

perennials, and dwarf-growing shrubs. We would especially name the

Christmas rose; if planted now in a light loamy soil close to an east

wall, plenty of flowers will be produced in succession from the

latter part of December until February, and in order to secure pure

white blooms, the plant, when just commencing to flower, should be

covered over with a bell-glass. If grown exposed to winds and rain

the flowers will be of a very dirty white. The roots of the winter

aconite, or, as it is sometimes called, "The New Year's Gift," should

now be planted in, if possible, a rather damp and shady situation;

its bright yellow flowers will be most welcome throughout the dull

months of December and January. It may be grown successfully under

the shelter of trees and shrubs.

* * * * *

Secure nice specimens of the forget-me-not, and plant in any damp,

shaded situation. A plentiful supply of flowers from early spring

onwards will amply repay any small amount of trouble entailed in

their cultivation. As the true forget-me-not (_Myosotis palustris_)

grows in most damp, boggy meadows throughout England it will cost

nothing to obtain it--except, perhaps, a pair of wet feet. The winter

aconite is likewise a native plant, but is rarely seen in a wild

state. Such spring-flowering perennials as the white arabis,

herbaceous candytufts, aubretias, primulas, and polyanthuses, should

now be placed in situations where it is desired for them to flower.

The majority of those just named thrive very well in almost any

moderately good garden soil, and under ordinary treatment.

* * * * *

The hardy annuals required for spring flowering which were omitted to

be sown during the previous months should now be done so with all

speed; the most suitable position will be in a box of light soil, and

the young seedlings may be protected from the severity of winter by

the box containing them being placed in a cold frame, which should be

covered by straw or other litter during very hard frosts. Although

the majority of annuals are of a very ephemeral character, few things

are more showy or more floriferous. Among many others we may

particularise the fragrant white-flowered alyssum, the blue, dark

purple, spotted, and white varieties of nemophila, white and pink

virginian stock, and the large yellow buttercup-like flowered

limnanthes. Batches of the annuals sown in August and September can

now be placed in warm spots in the open border, where, in all

probability, they will withstand the winter and flower duly in

spring.

* * * * *

The planting of flower-roots may be still carried on with vigour. As

regards the general work to be done now in the garden, we may mention

that in dry weather all walks and pathways should be swept and

rolled, which latter operation, like that of digging, ought to be

done by a labourer, although dragging a garden-roller has been

described as an excellent gymnastic exercise. Grass should be mowed

on every favourable opportunity; and where turf has been much worn

away, or where it is uneven, the objectionable portions must be

removed and replaced by better.

STORIES TOLD IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

_By_ EDWIN HODDER ("OLD MERRY").

V.--THE SANCTUARY, CLOISTERS, AND CHAPTER-HOUSE.

The Westminster Hospital and National Schools occupy the site of an

important portion of the precincts of Westminster Abbey as it was in

the olden times. This was the Sanctuary to which certain classes of

wrong-doers could flee for safety and escape the arm of the law. The

privilege of sanctuary had its uses in those troublous times; for it

enabled the innocent to take refuge where the tyrant dared not molest

them; but it also gave shelter to crowds of the lawless and depraved.

The Westminster Sanctuary was one out of about thirty attached to the

great English monasteries; in form it was a strong Norman fortress,

whose privileges were considered to be guaranteed by King Lucius,

King Sebert, and the apostle Peter himself. The Danes cared nothing

for sanctuaries, but Edward the Confessor re-organised the

institution with the Pope's aid.

There was great excitement and even consternation in London and

Westminster when in 1378 the privileges of the Abbey were tragically

violated. John of Gaunt had imprisoned in the Tower two knights who

had offended him. They escaped and rushed into sanctuary at

Westminster, but were soon pursued thither by the Constable of the

Tower and a company of armed men. The two knights were in the choir

of the Abbey attending high mass, and the deacon was just reading the

words "If the good man of the house had known what time the thief

would appear"--when the service was interrupted by the clash of arms.

One of the knights escaped, the other was chased twice round the

choir till he fell dead, pierced with twelve wounds. His servant and

one of the monks were killed at the same time. In consequence of this

desecration, the Abbey was shut up for four months; the chief

assailants were heavily fined and excommunicated.

In the fifteenth century, Edward the Fourth's Queen, Elizabeth

Woodville, was twice an inmate of the Sanctuary. On the first

occasion Edward V. was born here; on the second in 1483 her second

son the little Duke of York was torn away from her to share the

captivity and dark fate of his brother Edward V. in the Tower. Among

other noted persons who sought shelter here were Owen Tudor (uncle of

Henry VII.) and Skelton, the first Poet Laureate. The latter from his

safe retreat in the sanctuary sent forth against Cardinal Wolsey

invectives so bitter and so forcible that his death would have been

certain had he ventured outside the Abbey precincts. The rights of

the sanctuary were in full force till the time of Elizabeth, who

restricted the inmates to debtors; but under James I. all the English

sanctuaries were suppressed.

Near the Sanctuary was the Almonry, with its chapels and charitable

endowments, but deriving its chief interest to us as being the scene

of the early labours of Caxton. Margaret Richmond, the mother of

Henry VII., the gifted woman who founded St. John's and Christ's

Colleges, and who saw the signs of the coming changes, specially

protected in the Almonry, which she had re-endowed, the great pioneer

printer and his presses. Here the infant art grew up and flourished,

and still in the word "chapel," which is used to signify a meeting of

the compositors of a printing establishment, preserves a memento of

its early connection with the chapel of St. Anne in Margaret

Richmond's Almonry.

We will pass on, now to the Cloisters, begun by Edward the Confessor,

but rebuilt in the fourteenth century. Looking back four or five

hundred years we see the monks pacing to and fro, gossiping or

transacting the petty details of their daily life, and, as the time

came, digging graves for one another in the central grassplat. Here

the monks shaved each other's heads--an art in which they were

expected to be very skilful, and here the novices carried on their

studies. Rough mats took off the chill of the stone benches in some

degree, and the floor was littered over with hay and straw in summer,

and with rushes in winter. But in cold or stormy weather it must have

been a desolate place at the best, for the lower parts of the windows

opening on the central court were never closed.

Along the South Cloister lay the magnificent refectory, an upper hall

of the time of Edward II., with arcades of the time of the Confessor

beneath it. Very strict were the rules of behaviour in this great

dining-room. No monk might speak, and guests might only whisper.

There were particular rules against leaning on the elbows, sitting

with the hand on the chin, or cracking nuts with the teeth. The

beautiful and commodious hall of the refectory was occasionally used

for various secular gatherings. In 1244, Henry III. held a great

Council of State in it. Here Edward I. met a large gathering of

clergy and laity, and demanded half their possessions. The Dean of

St. Paul's, in his consternation, fell dead at Edward's feet. The

King took slight heed of this occurrence, and persisted in his

demands, till he obtained all he wanted. Several of the early

assemblies of the Commons of England took place in this hall.

The dormitory of the monks was over the East Cloister; there is a

gallery still remaining, opening into the south transept of the

Abbey, by which they came to their midnight services.

In the Eastern Cloister you see an ancient door, leading to what is

now called the chapel of the Pyx. In it is the Box or Pyx, containing

specimen standard-pieces of all the gold and silver coins of the

realm. Once in five years this strong room is opened, and coins newly

issued from the Mint are compared with the standards, to make sure

that the coinage is not degenerating. But in ancient days this

chamber was the treasury of England. Here the sovereigns kept their

money in hard coin, as well as the regalia, and many priceless

relics, such as the Holy Cross of Holyrood, the sceptre or rod of

Moses, and the dagger that wounded Edward I. at Acre. In 1303, whilst

Edward I. was invading Scotland, news was brought him that his

treasury had been broken into, and his vast hoards carried away. The

abbot and forty-eight monks were sent to the Tower, and after a long

trial, two of their number were proved to have been concerned in the

robbery. Amongst the iron-work of the door there are fragments of

human skin, which in all probability once pertained to these robbers,

and ever after remained as terrible warnings to the monks, as they

walked along the Cloisters. The king's money was henceforward kept

elsewhere, the regalia after a time sent to the Tower, and the relics

disappeared at the Reformation.

From the Cloisters we can readily reach the Chapter-House, the

octagonal building so conspicuous on the left hand before entering

the Abbey at Poets' Corner. It was founded by Edward the Confessor,

and rebuilt by Henry III. This beautiful building was at first the

meeting-place of the convent, in which all difficulties were adjusted

and satisfaction made for faults. The abbot, with his three priors

and sub-prior, occupied five richly-decorated stalls at the eastern

end. Above them rose a great crucifix to which the monks bowed on

entering. Then followed complaints, confessions, judgments,

punishments--such monks as were thought to need it were stripped to

the waist, and publicly scourged at the central pillar.

When the Commons began to meet apart from the Lords they met a few

times in the refectory, as I told you just now, but they soon settled

down in this Chapter-House. It would be too long and tedious a story

for me to attempt to recount the important acts that were passed in

this memorable edifice. The Commons sat here till the last day of

Henry VIII's life; their next meeting was in St. Stephen's Chapel in

the adjacent Palace.

From 1547 to 1863, the Chapter-House was used as a storehouse for the

public records. A special building for these has since been erected

in Chancery Lane, and by a grant from Parliament this beautiful and

time-honoured building has been redeemed from the miserable condition

resulting from centuries of neglect.

A little way from the Chapter-House stands a small square tower known

as the Parliament Office. It is thought that this tower was once the

convent prison, but however that may be, it was sold by the Abbey to

Edward III., and was for many years the royal jewel-house. Its

present name arose from the fact of all acts of Parliament being

deposited here, till they were moved to the Victoria Tower in 1864.

From the jewel-house, in the days of the abbots, there used to be a

path leading to a stream that ran down to the Thames. Hereabouts

lived the hermit of Westminster, in what was called "The Anchorite's

House." From age to age, a succession of hermits dwelt here, how

chosen for the post we do not know, but we hear of Richard II.

visiting the hermit in 1381, and of Henry V. doing the same at the

time of his father's death in 1413. It is said that one of these

"holy men" had been buried in a leaden coffin, in a small chapel

adjoining his cell. The keeper of the palace, William Ushborne, paid

a plumber to dig up this coffin and bring it to his office, after

throwing the bones down the cloister well. Tradition says that the

plumber fainted and died in Ushborne's house. Ushborne was guilty of

other crimes; he managed to steal a piece of the convent land and

made it into a garden with a fish-pond in the middle. He was supping

with his neighbours one evening on fish from this pond, and had taken

two or three mouthfuls of a large pike, when he shouted "Look! look!

here is come a fellow who is going to choke me." He died on the spot,

killed by the fish he had reared on the scene of his sacrilege.

Adjoining the land stolen by Ushborne was the Infirmary, (now

College) Garden, where sick brothers took exercise. Of the infirmary,

only a few fragments of arches remain--but these undoubtedly date

from the time of the Confessor. Here the sick monks dwelt, visited at

times by the long procession of the healthy brethren. Here also lived

the "playfellows"--the monks over fifty years of age--who were told

nothing unpleasant, were freed from the ordinary rules, and were

permitted to enjoy the privilege of censuring anything they heard or

saw.

The Infirmary Chapel (in which, by the way, the young monks were

privately whipped to spare them from the more public floggings in the

Chapter-House) was dedicated to St. Catherine. Many bishops were

consecrated and many church councils held in this building, of which

only a few arcades and pillars forming part of modern buildings now

mark the site. A curious scene was enacted here, at a church

assembly, in 1124, when the Archbishops of York and Canterbury

quarrelled about precedence. Richard of Canterbury took his seat on

the right-hand side of the Pope's Legate, whereupon, Roger of York,

who claimed that place, went and sat down in Canterbury's lap. He was

speedily pulled off by Canterbury's servants, and much knocked about.

Severely bruised, and with his cope torn, York rushed into the Abbey,

where he found the king, and told his wrongs. The king bound over

both the archbishops to keep the peace for five years, and the Pope

issued an edict that Canterbury should be Primate of all England,

and York Primate of England.

In the next century, St. Catherine's Chapel witnessed a stirring

scene, when Henry III., holding in one hand a Gospel, in the other a

lighted taper, swore to uphold Magna Charta. The king and all the

great dignitaries present threw their candles on the ground, then

holding their noses and shutting their eyes, they exclaimed "So go

out in smoke and stench the accursed souls of those who break or

pervert this charter." No voice was louder than that of the king's in

shouting "Amen and Amen!" and yet somehow, in future years, he did

not seem to bear in mind his solemn covenant. It was quite as well

for England that he did not, for out of the resistance to his

perfidious folly sprang the English Parliament.

Having mentioned now the most important of the convent buildings, I

shall conclude my stories by telling about the monuments to be seen

in the Abbey.

THE MAGIC MUSIC AND ITS MESSAGE.

A FAIRY STORY.

"It was the nightingale singing to the rose," said the girl, bending

over the flowers. "I heard it all through the night, when the moon

was shining into my room."

"No, it was not."

[Illustration: "SHE STRETCHED OUT HER HAND, AND GATHERED THE LILY."]

And the brook danced by--such a tiny little silver streak, winding

through the ferns and mosses, that the girl could scarcely see it.

But she certainly heard it, for no other voice could be so sweet.

"Did you see the lilies in the moonlight?" continued the voice; "they

looked like pearl and ivory."

"Then, does the nightingale like the lilies best?" asked the girl.

"I do not know. But what has the nightingale to do with it?"

The girl looked down at the lilies, and one of them seemed to nod to

her, and its perfumed breath rose up, until a delicate cloud, like

incense, spread around her.

And suddenly the same sweet strain of music that she had heard in the

night sounded from afar off. Yes, it was the same tune: she was sure

it was; she knew it quite well; she had been humming it over and

over as she stood beside the flowers.

As if moved by a sudden thought, she stretched out her hand, and

gathered the lily that had nodded to her. And as she did so the music

grew louder and louder, and instead of the tiny brook dancing through

the ferns and mosses, she saw a great sea, that shone like glittering

gold in the sunlight. And in the distance was a shadowy purple

island, all indistinct in the golden haze around it. She could not

clearly make out its outlines, but she fancied she could trace the

towers and turrets of a stately castle. And as the music grew clearer

and clearer the island appeared to move towards her, and the waves of

the golden sea came dashing up towards her feet. The waters already

covered part of the garden in which she was wandering, and some of

the roses were beginning to disappear, and the girl felt afraid lest

she should be drowned.

She threw down the lily, and as she did so she heard a sudden cry,

and the music died away in a low wail, the purple island and the

glittering sea vanished, and the little brook again danced along.

She wondered whatever it could mean.

The girl fancied it was saying--

"Alas! alas!"

Then she fled home, without stopping to pick up the lily.

II.

The girl lay sleeping in her little bedroom; she had left the window

open, because the night was warm. The moon was shining in, but it did

not wake her; neither did the little wood-elves, who had climbed up

the great vine, and had swarmed in at the window. Such numbers of

them! Some were sitting on the pillow stroking her hair, and

whispering into her ears, "Sleep, sleep, sleep," and others were

holding her eyelids fast closed, so that she could not open them to

see what was going on.

Some of them were dancing round in rings upon the soft white

coverlet, and others playing all sorts of pranks about the room.

The girl neither saw them nor heard them: she was too fast asleep for

that.

She did not even dream of them, but was dreaming of something very

different from wood-elves, or mountain-elves, or any other sort of

fay or fairy.

No; she dreamed that she heard some one singing--

[Illustration: "A LITTLE CHILD STANDING AT A DOOR, KNOCKING."]

"Up the stairs, if you will go,

You'll hear a tapping, tapping

At a door, for there you know

A little child is rapping,

Rapping, tapping, all the time,

Tapping, rapping, tapping."

"No, I don't know anything of the kind," said the girl, moving so

suddenly in her sleep that a score of wood-elves fell, heels over

head, from the bed to the floor.

"If you don't, if you'll go up

The staircase, you will find her;

She won't look round: she never does,

So you can get behind her,"

went on the song.

"And what will be the use of that?" murmured the girl in her dream.

"Why, you will help her, I suppose,

To reach up to the knocker.

You must not startle her, for that

Most certainly would shock her."

"It was the sea and the castle in the sunlight," said the girl, "and

now it is something quite as ridiculous: a little child standing at a

door knocking. That comes in the moonlight. And the music is going on

all the time."

She was speaking quite loudly now, and she suddenly opened her eyes,

in spite of the wood-elves, who crept down from the bed and hid

themselves in the folds of the curtains, for they did not want the

girl to know that they were there.

"It's the music that has waked me," said the girl, getting up in bed

and listening; "it's the same song over and over again, only I can't

make out the words, excepting, 'Come, come, come,' and then something

about the sea. But that is very absurd, for there is no sea near

here. The moon knows that as well as I do, for the moon looks down,

and sees that there are only fields and woods and orchards, and

beautiful gardens full of flowers. I wish I were not dreaming all the

time. The music is a dream too; I thought it was the nightingale: and

I dare say it is, and that if I looked out of the window I should see

about a dozen nightingales sitting in a row, for it would take a

dozen quite to make such loud music as I hear in the moonlight."

And the girl shook back her long hair, and jumped out of bed and went

to the window; but she could see nothing, for pressed tightly against

the window was a great white lily, just like the one she had thrown

down, only instead of being of the ordinary size, it was so large

that it covered all the panes of glass and also the open part of the

window, so that it was quite impossible to look out. The stalk was

towards her.

"I'm like an umbrella white,

Keeping off the sun or rain;

Keeping out the bright moonlight,

Keeping in the wood-elves' train,

said the lily. Then it continued--

"Yes, you threw me down in fright,

But I've come to you to-night.

Take me in your hand, and see

What will then my purpose be."

The girl was silent for a moment; everything was so strange: the

beautiful music, the talking brook, and now the talking flower.

"I will not have anything to do with any of you," she said, giving

the flower a push to send it away from the window.

But no sooner had she touched it than the flower shrank to its

natural size, and remained in her hand, which was so tightly closed

that she could not open it again.

"Away, away,

Each elf and fay!"

murmured the lily; and there was a soft rush as of many tiny wings,

and the girl felt herself carried through the air.

This was the work of the wood-elves, who were there to help the lily.

But the girl scarcely knew what was happening; she was listening to

the music, which was so grand and beautiful that she forgot

everything else.

[Illustration: "SHE HELD THE LILY IN HER HAND."]

III.

Was the girl the fairy queen? She began to think that she must be, as

she sat on some marble steps in the wood. She was dressed in white,

and had long silk stockings; and a veil of shining gossamer was

fastened on her head with a gold band, and it fell down to her feet,

and wrapped her round like a glittering cloud, and she held the lily

in her hand. And the music pealed on like a grand triumphal march,

and made the girl feel very proud and joyful.

Not very far off there was a carved chair, with some velvet cushions

upon it.

"Perhaps for me to be crowned in," said the girl, tossing her head.

"I wonder where my crown is?"

And as she said this she heard a burst of laughter, as if a thousand

grasshoppers were chirping. And an owl seated not far off said--

"Only queens are crowned, little girl."

"How do you know I am not a queen?" asked the girl, angrily. "Look at

my dress and my veil."

But the owl only said--

"Tu-whit, tu-whoo! tu-whit, tu-whoo!" and laughed so loudly that all

the wood-elves began to laugh also; so did the birds and the frogs,

and even the flowers. And the echoes answered back again.

There was so much noise that a troop of little sailors came running

up from the shore to see what was the matter.

"Are you ready?" said they to the girl; "the boat is waiting

With its silken sails,

The moon shines clear and bright;

There is no fear of stormy gales

Upon the sea to-night."

"I don't know what you are talking about," answered the girl. "There

is no sea near here, and if there is I am not going upon it."

But the sailors had wheeled the carved chair close to the marble

steps, and they went on speaking--

"To-night upon the sea we go,

And you with us must sail.

Step in; the tide is up, and we

Must start off without fail."

And the girl found herself in the chair, which the sailors pushed

down to the beach.

On the sea was a fine boat, with silken sails and a crimson flag.

The boat had a gilt figure-head, and its sides were painted blue and

gold. A red velvet carpet was spread upon the deck, and the sailors,

having hoisted the girl in the chair up the side of the vessel,

placed her upon the velvet carpet, and she found herself sailing fast

away from the land before she had time to think of how she had got

there.

The sailors were all standing at one end of the deck playing upon

various musical instruments, and the tune they played seemed to

answer back the beautiful music that she had heard for so many days

floating in the air. Also the sailors sang--

"Away it sails, the music-ship,

Over the moonlit sea,

And the trumpet that the captain blows

Is the only rudder the vessel knows,

As we sail so merrily,

The fiddles, and fifes, and drums, and horns

All carry the ship along,

It shapes its course by the cymbal clash

To the land of music and song."

[Illustration: "ON A COUCH LAY THE MASTER OF THE CASTLE" (_p.

297_).]

The girl did not quite understand what the sailors meant by their

strange song. It did not seem to be altogether sense to her, but she

supposed that they knew where they were going. Still she asked--

"Whither are we sailing?"

"Don't you hear the music calling to us from the castle?" said the

captain: "the castle on the purple island in the golden sea. We are

sailing there; the music has spoken to us many times, but we did not

attend to it until now."

"Has it called me?" asked the girl.

And she thought of the beautiful tune that had seemed to say "Come,

come." And now, as they sailed beneath the castle walls, the tune

issued forth very clear, sweet, and strong from an open window.

"It is the master of the castle: he plays night and day, and is

always inviting those who love music to come and dwell with him."

The girl looked up at the stately castle.

"If I had known that I should have come here before."

"No, you would not."

"Why?"

"Because no one would have brought you. You can only come at the

right time. Hush!"

IV.

"Hush!" said the captain; "we must not make any noise. Do not speak

again.

Go like a mouse

Into the house.

Up the stairs creep

Though they are steep.

There you will find,

If you're not blind,

A little child who's softly tapping,

Tapping, rapping, rapping, tapping,

Rapping, tapping at the door.

Though the knocker is so high,

Yet she still doth try and try;

You must knock, and it will fly

Open--little girl, good bye."

"Why, that was in the dream; and if you please, captain, tell me

where I am, and who is the child, and----"

But the captain had gone, so had the sailors, so had the ship.

The girl went slowly up the steps to the castle door, which being

open, she entered in, and found herself in a great hall, from which a

staircase wound up and up through a great many storeys.

"I must go," she said; for the music that sounded through the castle

seemed to speak to her, and bid her come.

And on and on she went, and on the seventh storey she paused; for at

a door she saw a child tapping and rapping, and trying to reach the

knocker.

Softly the girl went behind the little one, who never turned round,

but clutched in her hand a lily similar to the one the girl herself

held. She reached above the child's head, and knocked loudly. And

lo! a bugle-blast answered, and the door flew open, and the girl and

the child entered in together. They wandered through beautiful rooms,

listening ever to the music, and at last they came to one where on a

couch lay the master of the castle playing upon a lute.

If the music had sounded sweet in the distance, it sounded far

sweeter now, and the two paused on the threshold.

But the master said--

"Welcome to the Castle of Song, for none but true musicians find

their way here."

And then the child knelt down beside him, and said to him--

"I tried to come, but I could not knock loudly enough."

And the girl said--

"I do not think I tried to come, though the music was so beautiful.

Did you send for me?"

The master of the castle smiled, and answered--

"The music brought you."

Then the girl remembered that the boat sailed by music, and as she

looked through the open window and saw it sailing away in the

distance, she asked--

"Will it bring others, too?"

And the master of the castle replied--

"In time, in time."

JULIA GODDARD.

MORNINGS AT THE ZOO.

IX.--THE KANGAROOS.

[Illustration]

The famous navigator, Captain Cook, was the means of introducing

Kangaroos for the first time to the notice of Europeans. In 1770,

during his great voyage of discovery, his ship lay off the coast of

New South Wales undergoing repair. One day some of the crew were sent

ashore to procure food for several sick sailors. The men saw a number

of animals with small fore legs, big hind ones, long and stout tails,

which bounded away with incredible speed, clearing the ground by a

series of extraordinary leaps. You may be sure that on their return

to the vessel the amazed seamen did not fail to talk of the curious

creatures, and their description induced the captain and Mr.

(afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks--the naturalist of the expedition--to

start next day for a sight of the strange animals. They, too, were

fortunate enough to witness the antics of the kangaroos; and so one

of the most important of the natives of Australia became known to the

civilised world.

Since Captain Cook's discovery (June 22nd, 1770) these creatures have

been imported alive into this and other countries. They thrive in

captivity, though the variable climate of England tries them at

times. At the London Zoological Gardens they seem to enjoy life in a

moderate way, though probably they miss the freedom of the immense

plains of Australia. They are not much run after by the visitors,

though the "sheds" in the Regent's Park collection are always quite

accessible. Why this should be so it is difficult to explain, for the

kangaroos have many points of remarkable interest. Their keeper tells

me that he does not agree with the opinion that they are

unintelligent creatures. Though not so docile and smart as other

inmates of the Gardens, he has succeeded in training the great

kangaroo to perform several tricks. They all recognise him readily,

and do what he tells them. He entered the shed for the purpose of

fetching the female kangaroo out of the house, so that I might see

the baby kangaroo in its mother's pouch. But it so happened that the

father was standing against the door-grating, and he had to be

reasoned with before he would retire to allow the gate to be opened.

But he ultimately obeyed his keeper's instructions. Then he was

bidden to seat himself upright upon his huge tail; and this he did,

remaining quite motionless till he was released by word of command.

The keeper then affected to bestow upon him a gentle cuff on the

head, but each time the hand approached, the head was smartly ducked

under, and the blow thus avoided. On his part, he attempted to give

the keeper a kick, quite in a playful way, but the latter held

himself at arms' length, and so the kangaroo's legs merely brushed

the keeper's coat. On going into the house at the back of the shed,

the mother kangaroo--addressed familiarly "Now, old lady"--was

ordered to come out into the open, and in a few moments the big

animal in two or three graceful bounds appeared in front of the shed,

her little one popping its head out of the pouch, and looking

supremely indifferent about its mother's hops. The kangaroos are not

costly animals to support, and, though their food consists of grain

and some kinds of green stuff, they are rather partial to the bits of

biscuit and bun which visitors offer indiscriminately to every animal

in the Zoo--under the notion that this is the staple food of the

various inmates, of flesh-eaters and grain-eaters alike.

Sydney Smith hit off the distinguishing features of this creature in

his own peculiar style. By a sort of happy exaggeration he described

it as "a monstrous animal, as tall as a grenadier, with the head of a

rabbit, a tail as big as a bed-post, hopping along at the rate of

five hops to the mile, with three or four young kangaroos looking out

of the pouch to see what is passing." Though not an aggressive

animal, the kangaroo when at bay is one of the most formidable of

opponents. This element of danger it is, probably, which lends so

much zest to a kangaroo hunt.

Mounted on horses and accompanied by a number of trained dogs, the

huntsmen chase their prey for miles ere a capture is effected. Before

the kangaroo takes to its heels, it usually raises itself up and

makes a hurried survey of the country--to see its enemies and the

quarter to which it could with greatest ease escape. After this hasty

look round it runs off at a marvellous pace, very soon leaving the

dogs far behind. It maintains its great speed unimpaired for at

least three or four miles, after which it begins to go more slowly,

and an attack at close quarters may soon be looked for. A single dog

has no chance at all. With a stroke of its powerful hind leg, the

kangaroo attacks, and lays it dead at its feet, or, seizing it with

its fore limbs, it hugs the dog, and leaps off with it to the nearest

water-hole, where it plunges it underneath, holding it down until the

dog is drowned. A man is just as completely at its mercy. The

kangaroo is a capital swimmer, and has been known to swim for a mile

against a strong head wind, but under favourable conditions as to

weather it can cover a much longer distance; consequently when

pursued it always makes straight for a river or other water, should

it be within reach. Both hind feet are armed with a singularly

dangerous weapon. The fourth toe is prolonged in some cases to an

enormous size, forming a claw, which is used either for stabbing or

striking an antagonist. When a kangaroo has been brought to bay,

therefore, great care has to be observed in approaching it. The plan

adopted is to set several dogs on it, and while one makes a show of

assailing it, and so engages its attention, the rest rush in upon the

gallant animal and kill it. The natives employ another mode of

warfare. Surrounding gradually a herd of kangaroos, they close in

upon them with yells and shouts, and generally succeed in spearing

several of them. But the rifle places the animal at a manifest

disadvantage, and by the use of this weapon the kangaroos have been

entirely driven off the settlements. No doubt it had become necessary

to resort to some effectual method of dislodging them, for many of

the pastoral districts had been stripped of every blade of grass by

their ravages.

The kangaroo, however, serves a useful-enough purpose in its native

country. Its flesh is considered by those who have partaken of it to

be very good eating; and it is quite within the range of possibility

that kangaroo venison may become as popular as Australian mutton.

Kangaroo-tail soup is said to be a renowned delicacy, decidedly

superior to ox-tail. Some species of the tribe are hardier than

others, and stand the English climate well; indeed, we have the

authority of Dr. Sclater for the opinion that Bennett's kangaroo,

"with very little attention, would rapidly increase in any of the

midland or southern counties, where the soil is dry, and the

character of the ground affords shelter from the north and east." It

goes without saying that these active creatures would not be at all

out of place in some of our English parks, and, along with the

elegant deer, would lend them an additional attractiveness and charm.

JAMES A. MANSON.

MAB, THE WOLF, AND THE WATERFALL.

"Now, Mab, here's father's tea piping hot; take it and run along. You

know the way: go along by the river, and round by Jerry Smith's

cottage; then turn to the right, and the sound of father's axe will

guide you." So spoke Mrs. Lester while Mab, her little daughter,

donned her hat and cloak, with all a child's eagerness at the

prospect of a long sunny walk through the woods.

"Mind old Jerry's ghost doesn't catch hold of you," cried her waggish

brother Jack, as she crossed the threshold, tea-can in hand.

"There are no ghosts. Mother says they don't live in our days," quoth

Mab, disdainfully.

"Wolves do," said Ben, who was just nine, a year older than Mab.

"Take care you're not another Red Riding Hood."

"I shan't take care, because Red Riding Hood isn't true, any more

than fables are true: so father says; and we know fables are not

true," dissented matter-of-fact Mab, out of her eight years'

experience.

"Oh, more things are true than you and father know of," observed

Jack, with a wink at Ben.

But the little maiden was now out of hearing; once, twice she waved

her hand to them as they watched her from the doorway--how and when

would they meet again? Then she went trip-tripping along by the

brook. The brook ran into the wood; here it joined another stream,

wildly turbulent, although narrow, then together rushed on like two

prankish schoolboys out for a frolic; not long after joining hands,

as it were, they leaped down an embankment, laughing, as one could

fancy, listening to the babble the waters made, watching the

sparkling of the flying spray. Ah! many a rainbow shimmered about the

waterfall; right dangerous was the whirlpool above and below the

fall. Deep down in the ravine the waters meandered, calmly tranquil:

very like mature thoughtful manhood, after the prankish follies of

youth are past.

Well, along by the side of the brook trudged Mab, saying aloud, as if

to re-assure herself, "There are no ghosts and no wolves," for only

her parents' words could render the imaginative child brave, strong,

handsome girl of eight though she was. But ah! ah! what was that?

She was nearing Smith's cottage now, and surely something was

stirring among the bushes and undergrowth. Ah! yes, and a formidable

something was to be seen; her eyes scarce took it in ere it had quite

vanished. She met a little old woman a minute after, carrying a

bundle of sticks.

"Please; ma'am, did you see anything like a dog or a wolf as you came

along?" she asked, half ashamed of her question.

"La! child, no; and I hope I shan't, for I likes no such creatures;"

so saying, the old woman took to her heels and ran, sticks and all.

Poor little Mab wished she had not scared the old soul with her

fancies, for of course they were fancies, when oh, horror! the

child's heart seemed to leap into her throat; there, almost close to

her, was a hideous creature, which her startled imagination conjured

up into something terrible to behold, snorting, growling, and bearing

down upon her. Poor, impulsive, silly Mab: before she well knew what

she was doing she had sprung aside, anywhere to be out of the way of

the beast--a wolf she thought it was--and that anywhere was into the

brook, the prankish brook, just where it joined hands with its wild

companion. The very trees seemed to rustle with consternation as her

shriek rang around; ay, she may shriek, but who would hear her? Not

her father, chopping at and felling the giant trees some distance

away.

Now two lads rush up to the edge of the brook: they are Jack and Ben.

Jack drops a something very like a skin, and leaps in after poor,

screaming, struggling Mab, borne away, borne on to be hugged and

embraced in the arms of both streams, and hurried forward to the

waterfalls.

Alas! alas! will Jack save her? He has reached her; she is clinging

to him; but those two frolicsome watery playfellows are tossing them

hither and thither as in rude sport. Ben takes it all in with his

quick boyish eyes, and rushes away, like a very hare for swiftness,

to where his father is chopping in the calm afternoon glory, little

dreaming of what is happening not a mile away. How sweetly pitiful is

the calm wondering sky, watching overhead, as one may fancy, the

struggle for dear life going on in those wild gurgling waters. Ah!

the two streams in one have them in their embrace; they will not let

them go. Mab lies a senseless weight in Jack's arms as they are borne

on towards the whirlpool; once there, their fate will be sealed.

Jack's senses are leaving him; if Mab was not clinging to him as with

the grasp of death, he would let her go; his strong young arms are

waxing weak; and oh! a black terrible monster is upon him. Is it a

wolf? The river clamours and laughs--ha-ha! Jack, Mab, and the

terrible monster are mingling together; then Jack's senses are quite

gone, and he remembers no more.

Meanwhile, Ben sweeps on like the wind, hearkening even in his haste

for the welcome "thwack, thwack" of his father's axe. It is a sweetly

tranquil scene he bursts upon at last--a knot of toiling men lopping

off the limbs of a huge tree but newly laid low--the lad heard the

crash of its fall as he ran. The warm afternoon glow was about them,

the little birds hopping and peering among the wide-spreading

branches of the trees around, half startled, half curious, as if to

see all. A terrible shock to John Lester was the tale the panting boy

had to tell, and then he too ran like the wind; his companions in

full cry behind.

Only the exultant river, all flecked with lights and with afternoon

colouring, met the eyes of the eager men when they reached the spot;

the struggle was over. Two lives had gone out or had been saved; the

father wrung his hands as he rushed madly here and there, and peered

over at the plashing waterfall, Ben at his side, and both seeing

nothing of the dear ones they sought.

"And it all came of Jack's putting on old Shag's skin and playing

wolf to frighten Mab; and she saw him, and jumped in before he had

time to speak," wailed Ben, as the river swept on and the waterfall

clamoured. John Lester groaned.

"Well, Master Lester; I have 'em safe enough--I and old Jowler. 'Twas

a miracle of savin', but 'tis done; they're both in bed and asleep

like two tops already." So spoke Jerry Smith, the owner of the

cottage in the woods, and of a ghost to boot, if the lads of the

neighbourhood could be believed, coming up behind the distracted

father, and speaking over his shoulder.

"Then Heaven be praised!" returned he out of the depth of his heart,

turning and grasping the old man's hand.

"Ay! I have 'em all safe--ha-ha!" laughed the old man, glancing up at

his chamber window, which looked westward, where stood a wooden

figure of a miniature North American Indian all in his war paint, and

brandishing his knives like a very brave, as the wind caught him and

whirled him round.

"And see, Master Lester, I've mounted my savage to amuse them when

they wake--my ghost the youngsters about here call it, and keep clear

of my house. Ghost, indeed! there are no ghosts."

"No; the world is getting too wise to believe such nonsense in our

days, Jerry. But I'd like to take a look at my youngsters," quoth

John Lester.

The old man led him in--Ben following on tip-toe--and up to his

quaint chamber--ah! yes, it was very quaint and pretty, full of

wonderful surprises, what with curious stones arranged here, a

stuffed squirrel there, and a dormouse elsewhere. Then in one corner

was a fleet of tiny ships--ah! Jerry had been a sailor in his

youthful days--which sailed round and round a centre one and

stationary by using an apparatus not unlike small bellows. And there

in the west window stood the warrior Indian, chopping and cutting at

imaginary foes among the sunbeams. But the father's eyes sought his

children. Ah! yes, he was thankful to see, there they were, both

sweetly sleeping, Mab in the old man's bed, a stray sunbeam flitting

over her face, like a smile from somewhere, Jack wrapped in blankets

on the floor.

The sweet after-glow was about the house ere they awoke, and then

peals of laughter from both children brought old Jerry up his

creaking stairs. Nay, Jack was out on the landing, hurrying out of

his blankets and into the dry clothes Ben had brought him from home.

When the two children had dressed and descended the stairs, there, in

the cosy little kitchen, stood tea ready for them--bread-and-butter

and blackberry jam, and such old-fashioned china cups and saucers for

the three young ones to drink from. What is more, there was a pair of

curiously-worked bead slippers for Mab, and a bow and arrow for each

of the boys.

"Ingins' work," the old man told them when they thanked him.

"You _are_ a clever man, Jerry, if you made that dancing old

thing--did you?" cried Jack.

"What, made my Ingin? In course I did."

"Phew! why, all the fellows said 'twas a ghost you kept in your

window," said admiring Jack, now outside the house, and looking up at

the window--"why, I half said so myself."

"Well, lad, ghosts are but whims and fancies, and this _individual_

is good solid wood, you see," replied Jerry, looking up, and

chuckling at his own handiwork.

Mab soon stood beside Jack, and Ben came out ready to depart.

"Children," said the old man, as they thanked him and bade him

"good-bye," patting Jowler on the head as he stood by his master,

"children, keep to the good, right, honest truth from this day, even

in fun; the wolves and things ye have conjured up to-day out of

nothing have gone nigh to costing ye dearly, lads. And you little

maiden, take an old man's warning, and look before you leap, as

mayhap I and Jowler may not be anigh next time. And there's a many

leaps to be taken in life, and a many waterfalls and things about

ye."

"Wow, wow, wow!" said Jowler to this, springing up, and licking his

master's hand, and so ends my story of Mab, the wolf, and the

waterfall.

[Illustration: MAB ON HER JOURNEY. (_See p. 299._)]

"WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY."

A TRUE STORY.

This is a very old proverb, and a very true one. Sometimes we forget

it, though, and say "I can't," before we have really tried at all.

Now I should like to tell you the true story of two little Irish

sweeps who had the will to learn to read, and found the way, although

it was a very difficult one.

Some years ago a few kind people made up their minds to try to get

hold of all the chimney-sweeps in Dublin and give them an education.

One day a little fellow came who was asked if he knew his letters.

"Oh, yes," he answered.

"Can you spell?"

"Oh, yes."

"Can you read?"

"Oh, yes."

"What books did you learn from?"

"Please, sir, I never had a book."

"Then who was your schoolmaster?"

"I never went to school at all."

The gentleman stared, for it seemed very strange that a boy should be

able to read and spell, and yet never had a master.

"Then however did you learn?" he asked.

The little boy smiled, and linked his arm in that of a sweep somewhat

older than himself.

"Please, sir, Jim taught me the letters over the shop doors, as we

went to our work, but now I know all the words by heart, and if you'd

kindly let us have some books to read and teach us to do sums and

writing, we'd be very thankful."

Can't you fancy what good pupils those two boys became, and how they

delighted in reading in books instead of making their necks ache by

peering up at the shops?

E. M. W.

"HOME, SWEET HOME;"

OR, LOST IN LONDON.

Miles and miles away in the country, where not even a train ever

came, lived a family of children, of whom the eldest was a big lad of

eighteen, the youngest a little thing of five. They led a peaceful,

happy life among the fields and lanes and wild flowers, yet, like

many others, they took but little heed of the beauties around, and

some of them at least spent a great deal of time in sighing for

things they had not got.

Jennie, the eldest girl, had a great deal to do with that. She had a

habit of fancying every one more fortunate and happier than herself.

She was always wishing for some impossible thing. If by any chance

one of her wishes were gratified, she was always disappointed, and

began to want something else.

The children had often heard and read about a wonderful place called

London. Jennie, who was a very kind sister, was always talking to

them about it, and the wonderful stories she told them made them long

to see this enchanted city. That, indeed, was one of Jennie's

unfulfilled longings. She had read a great deal, and imagined a great

deal more, till she set all the children longing too.

Their big brother Donald heard Phyllis and Effie talking together one

day, and he burst in upon them with a laugh, and told them that all

the houses were palaces and the streets paved with gold, that marble

fountains played in them, and that golden carriages drawn by

milk-white steeds rolled incessantly along; that trains rushed in

every direction, and that if you just stepped inside one it would

take you anywhere, like a flash of lightning; that there was a church

so high that you could not see the roof, and a needle so big that

twenty men could not lift it. Then Donald went away laughing, and the

children held their breath with wonder, and agreed that they should

never be happy till they had seen this fairyland.

Not very long after their mother came down to breakfast with red

eyes, and their father looked grave. They knew something was the

matter, and sat waiting in sorrowful dread.

"Children," said their mother, with a shaky voice, "you will have to

leave this beautiful, peaceful home. You must say 'good-bye' to all

your pets, for soon, very soon, we must leave them all. You must be

good children and not fret; but oh! it is very sad. Father is obliged

to go and live in London."

How strange! A ray of sunshine seemed to have passed round the table,

changing apprehension into eager excitement. Phyllis clapped her

hands. "London, mamma? Oh, how lovely!"

Their mother sighed, and said, "Well, darlings, I am glad you take it

so well; but I am afraid it will be a long time before you feel as

happy as we are in this dear old home."

At last came the morning when they were to start. They were wild with

delight, and thought it splendid fun at first. But when the train

with a shrill scream flew into a dark tunnel, several hearts beat

very wildly, and several little faces would have looked white enough,

could they have been seen.

At last several heads began to ache, and a good many legs seemed to

want stretching; but the several hearts could not for worlds have

owned that they were not enjoying themselves immensely.

And when the enchanted city was reached, it was dark, and they saw

nothing but a confused medley of lights and figures, and walls with

big letters all over them.

Then they were jolted through some noisy, busy street, and were at

length deposited safely in the house where they were to lodge until

their new home was ready.

There was so much noise outside while they were at tea, that Phyllis

and Effie wondered what could be the matter, until they saw that

their father and mother did not seem to be in the least alarmed at

it.

When they went to bed, it was a long time before they could go to

sleep. But being very tired, they did manage it, though they dreamed

very queer things about a great many people, and horses and carts

tumbling on the top of each other, with a noise like thunder.

The next morning, when they were having breakfast in a dark little

parlour, their father said to their mother, "You and I must go and

look about to day;" and to Donald he said, "You may take your two

sisters for a walk on the Embankment, and show them the river, and

the Temple, and Cleopatra's Needle, but be very careful of crossings,

and ask a policeman when you don't know the way. Phyllis and Effie

must stay at home, and amuse themselves with their dollies till our

return."

At this Phyllis felt greatly injured, but she said nothing, for she

knew she must obey.

Their mother went and fetched them some toys and books, and before

she went out charged Martha, their little attendant, to do her best

to amuse them; but Phyllis was not in a mood to be amused.

"Martha," she said, "it's horrid in here! Let's go in the garden."

"Lor, miss! there isn't such a thing."

Then Phyllis went and looked out of the window, but the air was so

thick that she could see nothing but a few chimney-pots, and people

moving like shadows in the street below.

Phyllis soon grew tired of the window. She wondered very much what

Donald and her sisters were seeing, and how far off London was.

"Martha," she said presently, "we must go for a walk; of course we

must. We always do at home."

"Oh, dear dear!" cried Martha, with something like a sniff, "I

wouldn't do it for worlds. I'd lose my way for certain, and be run

over in this dirty, foggy place."

"Why, you've only got to be careful of the crossings, and ask a

policeman the way," Phyllis replied, crossly; "and it is so dull

here."