Lucy Jane Bull and her sisters were quite old enough to understand a

good deal of grown-up conversation when they overheard it. Thus, when a

friend of Mrs. Bull’s observed during an afternoon call that she

believed that “officers’ wives were very dressy,” the young ladies were

at once resolved to keep a sharp look-out for the Captain’s wife’s

bonnet in church on Christmas Day.

The Bulls had just taken their seats when the Captain’s wife came in.

They really would have hid their faces, and looked at the bonnet

afterwards, but for the startling sight that met the gaze of the

congregation. The old grandfather walked into church abreast of the

Captain.

“They’ve met in the porch,” whispered Mr. Bull under the shelter of his

hat.

“They can’t quarrel publicly in a place of worship,” said Mrs. Bull,

turning pale.

“She’s gone into his seat,” cried Lucy Jane in a shrill whisper.

“And the children after her,” added the other sister, incautiously

aloud.

There was now no doubt about the matter. The old man in his blue cloak

stood for a few moments, politely disputing the question of precedence

with his handsome son-in-law. Then the Captain bowed and passed in, and

the old man followed him.

By the time that the service was ended everybody knew of the happy

peacemaking, and was glad. One old friend after another came up with

blessings and good wishes. This was a proper Christmas, indeed, they

said. There was a general rejoicing.

But only the grandfather and his children knew that it was hatched from

“The Peace-Egg.”

THE BROWNIES.

A little girl sat sewing and crying on a garden seat. She had fair

floating hair, which the breeze blew into her eyes; and between the

cloud of hair, and the mist of tears, she could not see her work very

clearly. She neither tied up her locks, nor dried her eyes, however; for

when one is miserable, one may as well be completely so.

“What is the matter?” said the Doctor, who was a friend of the Rector’s,

and came into the garden whenever he pleased.

The Doctor was a tall stout man, with hair as black as crows’ feathers

on the top, and gray underneath, and a bushy beard. When young, he had

been slim and handsome, with wonderful eyes, which were wonderful still;

but that was many years past. He had a great love for children, and this

one was a particular friend of his.

“What is the matter?” said he.

“I’m in a row,” murmured the young lady through her veil; and the needle

went in damp, and came out with a jerk, which is apt to result in what

ladies called “puckering.”

“You are like London in a yellow fog,” said the Doctor, throwing himself

on to the grass, “and it is very depressing to my feelings. What is the

row about, and how came you to get into it?”

“We’re all in it,” was the reply; and apparently the fog was thickening,

for the voice grew less and less distinct—“the boys and everybody. It’s

all about forgetting, and not putting away, and leaving about, and

borrowing, and breaking, and that sort of thing. I’ve had father’s new

pocket-handkerchiefs to hem, and I’ve been out climbing with the boys,

and kept forgetting and forgetting, and mother says I always forget; and

I can’t help it. I forget to tidy his newspapers for him, and I forget

to feed Puss, and I forgot these; besides, they’re a great bore, and

mother gave them to Nurse to do, and this one was lost, and we found it

this morning tossing about in the toy-cupboard.”

“It looks as if it had been taking violent exercise,” said the Doctor.

“But what have the boys to do with it?”

“Why, then there was a regular turn out of the toys,” she explained,

“and they’re all in a regular mess. You know, we always go on till the

last minute, and then things get crammed in anyhow. Mary and I did tidy

them once or twice; but the boys never put anything away, you know, so

what’s the good?”

“What, indeed!” said the Doctor. “And so you have complained of them?”

“Oh! no!” answered she. “We don’t get them into rows, unless they are

very provoking; but some of the things were theirs, so everybody was

sent for, and I was sent out to finish this, and they are all tidying. I

don’t know when it will be done, for I have all this side to hem; and

the soldier’s box is broken, and Noah is lost out of the Noah’s Ark, and

so is one of the elephants and a guinea-pig, and so is the

rocking-horse’s nose; and nobody knows what has become of Rutlandshire

and the Wash, but they’re so small, I don’t wonder; only North America

and Europe are gone too.”

The Doctor started up in affected horror. “Europe gone, did you say?

Bless me! what will become of us!”

“Don’t!” said the young lady, kicking petulantly with her dangling feet,

and trying not to laugh. “You know I mean the puzzles; and if they were

yours, you wouldn’t like it.”

“I don’t half like it as it is,” said the Doctor. “I am seriously

alarmed. An earthquake is one thing: you have a good shaking, and settle

down again. But Europe gone—lost— Why, here comes Deordie, I declare,

looking much more cheerful than we do; let us humbly hope that Europe

has been found. At present I feel like Aladdin when his palace had been

transported by the magician; I don’t know where I am.”

“You’re here, Doctor; aren’t you?” asked the slow curly-wigged brother,

squatting himself on the grass.

“_Is_ Europe found?” said the Doctor tragically.

“Yes,” laughed Deordie. “I found it.”

“You will be a great man,” said the Doctor. “And—it is only common

charity to ask—how about North America?”

“Found too,” said Deordie. “But the Wash is completely lost.”

“And my six shirts in it!” said the Doctor. “I sent them last Saturday

as ever was. What a world we live in! Any more news? Poor Tiny here has

been crying her eyes out.”

“I’m so sorry, Tiny,” said the brother. “But don’t bother about it. It’s

all square now, and we’re going to have a new shelf put up.”

“Have you found everything?” asked Tiny.

“Well, not the Wash, you know. And the elephant and the guinea-pig are

gone for good; so the other elephant and the other guinea-pig must walk

together as a pair now. Noah was among the soldiers, and we have put the

cavalry into a night-light box. Europe and North America were behind the

book-case; and, would you believe it? the rocking-horse’s nose has

turned up in the nursery oven?”

“I can’t believe it,” said the Doctor. “The rocking-horse’s nose

couldn’t turn up, it was the purest Grecian, modelled from the Elgin

marbles. Perhaps it was the heat that did it, though. However, you seem

to have got through your troubles very well, Master Deordie. I wish poor

Tiny were at the end of her task.”

“So do I,” said Deordie ruefully. “But I tell you what I’ve been

thinking, Doctor. Nurse is always knagging at us, and we’re always in

rows of one sort or another, for doing this, and not doing that, and

leaving our things about. But, you know, it’s a horrid shame, for there

are plenty of servants, and I don’t see why we should be always

bothering to do little things, and—”

“Oh! come to the point, please,” said the Doctor; “you do go round the

square so, in telling your stories, Deordie. What have you been thinking

of?”

“Well,” said Deordie, who was as good tempered as he was slow, “the

other day Nurse shut me up in the back nursery for borrowing her

scissors and losing them; but I’d got ‘Grimm’ inside one of my

knickerbockers, so when she locked the door, I sat down to read. And I

read the story of the Shoemaker and the little Elves who came and did

his work for him before he got up; and I thought it would be so jolly if

we had some little Elves to do things instead of us.”

“That’s what Tommy Trout said,” observed the Doctor.

“Who’s Tommy Trout?” asked Deordie.

“Don’t you know, Deor?” said Tiny. “It’s the good boy who pulled the cat

out of the what’s-his-name.

‘Who pulled her out?

Little Tommy Trout.’

Is it the same Tommy Trout, Doctor? I never heard anything else about

him except his pulling the cat out; and I can’t think how he did that.”

“Let down the bucket for her, of course,” said the Doctor. “But listen

to me. If you will get that handkerchief done, and take it to your

mother with a kiss, and not keep me waiting, I’ll have you all to tea,

and tell you the story of Tommy Trout.”

“This very night?” shouted Deordie.

“This very night.”

“Every one of us?” inquired the young gentleman with rapturous

incredulity.

“Every one of you.—Now Tiny, how about that work?”

“It’s just done,” said Tiny.—“Oh! Deordie, climb up behind, and hold

back my hair, there’s a darling, while I fasten off. Oh! Deor, you’re

pulling my hair out. Don’t.”

“I want to make a pig-tail,” said Deor.

“You can’t,” said Tiny, with feminine contempt, “You can’t plait. What’s

the good of asking boys to do anything? There! it’s done at last. Now go

and ask mother if we may go.—Will you let me come, doctor,” she

inquired, “if I do as you said?”

“To be sure I will,” he answered. “Let me look at you. Your eyes are

swollen with crying. How can you be such a silly little goose?”

“Did you never cry?” asked Tiny.

“When I was your age? Well, perhaps so.”

“You’ve never cried since, surely,” said Tiny.

The Doctor absolutely blushed.

“What do you think?” said he.

“Oh, of course not,” she answered. “You’ve nothing to cry about. You’re

grown up, and you live all alone in a beautiful house, and you do as you

like, and never get into rows, or have anybody but yourself to think

about; and no nasty pocket-handkerchiefs to hem.”

“Very nice; eh, Deordie?” said the Doctor.

“Awfully jolly,” said Deordie.

“Nothing else to wish for, eh?”

“I should keep harriers, and not a poodle, if I were a man,” said

Deordie; “but I suppose you could, if you wanted to.”

“Nothing to cry about, at any rate?”

“I should think not!” said Deordie.—“There’s mother, though; let’s go

and ask her about the tea;” and off they ran.

The Doctor stretched his six feet of length upon the sward, dropped his

gray head on a little heap of newly-mown grass, and looked up into the

sky.

“Awfully jolly—no nasty pocket-handkerchiefs to hem,” said he laughing

to himself. “Nothing else to wish for; nothing to cry about.”

Nevertheless, he lay still, staring at the sky, till the smile died

away, and tears came into his eyes. Fortunately, no one was there to

see.

What could this “awfully jolly” Doctor be thinking of to make him cry?

He was thinking of a grave-stone in the church-yard close by, and of a

story connected with this grave-stone which was known to everybody in

the place who was old enough to remember it. This story has nothing to

do with the present story, so it ought not to be told.

And yet it has to do with the Doctor, and is very short, so it shall be

put in, after all.

THE STORY OF A GRAVE-STONE.

One early spring morning about twenty years before, a man, going to his

work at sunrise through the church-yard, stopped by a flat stone which

he had lately helped to lay down. The day before, a name had been cut on

it, which he stayed to read; and below the name some one had scrawled a

few words in pencil, which he read also—_Pitifully behold the sorrows

of our hearts_. On the stone lay a pencil, and a few feet from it lay

the Doctor, face downwards, as he had lain all night, with the hoar

frost on his black hair.

Ah! these grave-stones (they were ugly things in those days; not the

light, hopeful, pretty crosses we set up now) how they seem

remorselessly to imprison and keep our dear dead friends away from us!

And yet they do not lie with a feather’s weight upon the souls that are

gone, while God only knows how heavily they press upon the souls that

are left behind. Did the spirit whose body was with the dead, stand that

morning by the body whose spirit was with the dead and pity him? Let us

only talk about what we know.

After this it was said that the Doctor had got a fever, and was dying,

but he got better of it; and then that he was out of his mind, but he

got better of that, and came out looking much as usual, except that his

hair never seemed quite so black again, as if a little of that night’s

hoar frost still remained. And no further misfortune happened to him

that I ever heard of; and as time went on he grew a beard, and got

stout, and kept a German poodle, and gave tea parties to other people’s

children. As to the grave-stone story, whatever it was to him at the end

of twenty years; it was a great convenience to his friends; for when he

said anything they didn’t agree with, or did anything they couldn’t

understand, or didn’t say or do what was expected of him, what could be

easier or more conclusive than to shake one’s head and say,

“The fact is, our Doctor has been a little odd, _ever since_—!”

THE DOCTOR’S TEA PARTY.

There is one great advantage attendant upon invitations to tea with a

doctor. No objections can be raised on the score of health. It is

obvious that it must be fine enough to go out when the doctor asks you,

and that his tea-cakes may be eaten with perfect impunity.

Those tea-cakes were always good; to-night they were utterly delicious;

there was a perfect _abandon_ of currants, and the amount of citron peel

was enervating to behold. Then the housekeeper waited in awful splendor,

and yet the Doctor’s authority over her seemed as absolute as if he were

an Eastern despot. Deordie must be excused for believing in the charms

of living alone. It certainly has its advantages. The limited sphere of

duty conduces to discipline in the household, demand does not exceed

supply in the article of waiting, and there is not that general

scrimmage of conflicting interests which besets a large family in the

most favored circumstances. The housekeeper waits in black silk, and

looks as if she had no meaner occupation than to sit in a rocking-chair,

and dream of damson cheese.

Rustling, hospitable, and subservient, this one retired at last, and—

“Now,” said the Doctor, “for the verandah; and to look at the moon.”

The company adjourned with a rush, the rear being brought up by the

poodle, who seemed quite used to the proceedings; and there under the

verandah, framed with passion flowers and geraniums, the Doctor had

gathered mats, rugs, cushions, and arm-chairs, for the party; while far

up in the sky, a yellow-faced harvest moon looked down in awful

benignity.

“Now!” said the Doctor. “Take your seats. Ladies first, and gentlemen

afterwards. Mary and Tiny race for the American rocking-chair. Well

done! Of course it will hold both. Now boys, shake down. No one is to

sit on the stone, or put their feet on the grass; and when you’re ready,

I’ll begin.”

“We’re ready,” said the girls.

The boys shook down in a few minutes more, and the Doctor began the

story of

“THE BROWNIES.”

“Bairns are a burden,” said the Tailor to himself as he sat at work. He

lived in a village on some of the glorious moors of the north of

England; and by bairns he meant children, as every Northman knows.

“Bairns are a burden,” and he sighed.

“Bairns are a blessing,” said the old lady in the window. “It is the

family motto. The Trouts have had large families and good luck for

generations; that is, till your grandfather’s time. He had one only son.

I married him. He was a good husband, but he had been a spoilt child. He

had always been used to be waited upon, and he couldn’t fash to look

after the farm when it was his own. We had six children. They are all

dead but you, who were the youngest. You were bound to a tailor. When

the farm came into your hands, your wife died, and you have never looked

up since. The land is sold now, but not the house. No! no! you’re right

enough there; but you’ve had your troubles, son Thomas, and the lads

_are_ idle!”

It was the Tailor’s mother who spoke. She was a very old woman, and

helpless. She was not quite so bright in her intellect as she had been,

and got muddled over things that had lately happened; but she had a

clear memory for what was long past, and was very pertinacious in her

opinions. She knew the private history of almost every family in the

place, and who of the Trouts were buried under which old stones in the

church-yard; and had more tales of ghosts, doubles, warnings, fairies,

witches, hobgoblins, and such like, than even her grandchildren had ever

come to the end of. Her hands trembled with age, and she regretted this

for nothing more than for the danger it brought her into of spilling the

salt. She was past housework, but all day she sat knitting hearth-rugs

out of the bits and scraps of cloth that were shred in the tailoring.

How far she believed in the wonder-tales she told, and the odd little

charms she practised, no one exactly knew; but the older she grew, the

stranger were the things she remembered, and the more testy she was if

any one doubted their truth.

“Bairns are a blessing!” said she. “It is the family motto.”

“_Are they?_” said the Tailor, emphatically.

He had a high respect for his mother, and did not like to contradict

her, but he held his own opinion, based upon personal experience; and

not being a metaphysician, did not understand that it is safer to found

opinions on principles than on experience, since experience may alter,

but principles cannot.

“Look at Tommy,” he broke out suddenly. “That boy does nothing but

whittle sticks from morning till night. I have almost to lug him out of

bed o’ mornings. If I send him an errand, he loiters; I’d better have

gone myself. If I set him to do anything, I have to tell him everything;

I could sooner do it myself. And if he does work, it’s done so

unwillingly, with such a poor grace; better, far better, to do it

myself. What housework do the boys ever do but looking after the baby?

And this afternoon she was asleep in the cradle, and off they went, and

when she awoke, _I_ must leave my work to take her. _I_ gave her her

supper, and put her to bed. And what with what they want and I have to

get, and what they take out to play with and lose, and what they bring

in to play with and leave about, bairns give some trouble, Mother, and

I’ve not an easy life of it. The pay is poor enough when one can get the

work, and the work is hard enough when one has a clear day to do it in;

but housekeeping and bairn-minding don’t leave a man much time for his

trade. No! no! Ma’am, the luck of the Trouts is gone and ‘Bairns are a

burden,’ is the motto now. Though they are one’s own,” he muttered to

himself, “and not bad ones and I did hope once would have been a

blessing.”

“There’s Johnnie,” murmured the old lady, dreamily. “He has a face like

an apple.”

“And is about as useful,” said the Tailor. “He might have been

different, but his brother leads him by the nose.”

His brother led him in as the Tailor spoke, not literally by his snub,

though, but by the hand. They were a handsome pair, this lazy couple.

Johnnie especially had the largest and roundest of foreheads, the

reddest of cheeks, the brightest of eyes, the quaintest and most twitchy

of chins, and looked altogether like a gutta percha cherub in a chronic

state of longitudinal squeeze. They were locked together by two grubby

paws, and had each an armful of moss, which they deposited on the floor

as they came in.

“I’ve swept this floor once to-day,” said the father, “and I’m not going

to do it again. Put that rubbish outside.”

“Move it Johnnie!” said his brother, seating himself on a stool, and

taking out his knife and a piece of wood, at which he cut and sliced;

while the apple cheeked Johnnie stumbled and stamped over the moss, and

scraped it out on to the door-step, leaving long trails of earth behind

him, and then sat down also.

“And those chips the same,” added the Tailor; “I will _not_ clear up the

litter you lads make.”

“Pick ’em up, Johnnie,” said Thomas Trout, junior, with an exasperated

sigh; and the apple tumbled up, rolled after the flying chips, and

tumbled down again.

“Is there any supper, Father?” asked Tommy.

“No, there is not, Sir, unless you know how to get it,” said the Tailor;

and taking his pipe, he went out of the house.

“Is there really nothing to eat Granny?” asked the boy.

“No, my bairn, only some bread for breakfast to-morrow.”

“What makes Father so cross, Granny?”

“He’s wearied, and you don’t help him, my dear.”

“What could I do, Grandmother?”

“Many little things, if you tried,” said the old lady. “He spent

half-an-hour to-day while you were on the moor, getting turf for the

fire, and you could have got it just as well, and he been at his work.”

“He never told me,” said Tommy.

“You might help me a bit just now, if you would, my laddie,” said the

old lady coaxingly; “these bits of cloth want tearing into lengths, and

if you get ’em ready, I can go on knitting. There’ll be some food when

this mat is done and sold.”

“I’ll try,” said Tommy, lounging up with desperate resignation. “Hold my

knife, Johnnie. Father’s been cross, and everything has been miserable,

ever since the farm was sold. I wish I were a big man, and could make a

fortune.—Will that do, Granny?”

The old lady put down her knitting and looked. “My dear, that’s too

short. Bless me! I gave the lad a piece to measure by.”

“I thought it was the same length. Oh, dear! I am so tired;” and he

propped himself against the old lady’s chair.

“My dear! don’t lean so! you’ll tipple me over!” she shrieked.

“I beg your pardon, Grandmother. Will _that_ do?”

“It’s that much too long.”

“Tear that bit off. Now it’s all right.”

“But, my dear, that wastes it. Now that bit is of no use. There goes my

knitting, you awkward lad!”

“Johnnie, pick it up!—Oh! Grandmother, I _am_ so hungry.”

The boy’s eyes filled with tears, and the old lady was melted in an

instant.

“What can I do for you, my poor bairns?” said she. “There, never mind

the scraps, Tommy.”

“Tell us a tale, Granny. If you told us a new one, I shouldn’t keep

thinking of that bread in the cupboard.—Come Johnny, and sit against

me. Now then!”

“I doubt if there’s one of my old-world cracks I haven’t told you,” said

the old lady, “unless it’s a queer ghost story was told me years ago of

that house in the hollow with the blocked-up windows.”

“Oh! not ghosts!” Tommy broke in; “we’ve had so many. I know it was a

rattling, or a scratching, or a knocking, or a figure in white; and if

it turns out a tombstone or a white petticoat, I hate it.”

“It was nothing of the sort as a tombstone,” said the old lady with

dignity. “It’s a good half-mile from the church-yard. And as to white

petticoats, there wasn’t a female in the house; he wouldn’t have one;

and his victuals came in by the pantry window. But never mind! Though

it’s as true as a sermon.”

Johnnie lifted his head from his brother’s knee.

“Let Granny tell what she likes, Tommy. It’s a new ghost, and I should

like to know who he was, and why his victuals came in by the window.”

“I don’t like a story about victuals,” sulked Tommy. “It makes me think

of the bread. O Granny dear! do tell us a fairy story. You never will

tell us about the Fairies, and I know you know.”

“Hush! hush!” said the old lady. “There’s Miss Surbiton’s Love Letter,

and her Dreadful End.”

“I know Miss Surbiton, Granny. I think she was a goose. Why won’t you

tell us about the Fairies?”

“Hush! hush! my dears. There’s the Clerk and the Corpse-candles.”

“I know the Corpse-candles, Granny. Besides, they make Johnnie dream and

he wakes me to keep him company. _Why_ won’t you tell us about the

Fairies?”

“My dear, they don’t like it,” said the old lady.

“O Granny dear, why don’t they? Do tell! I shouldn’t think of the bread

a bit, if you told us about the Fairies. I know nothing about them.”

“He lived in this house long enough,” said the old lady. “But it’s not

lucky to name him.”

“Oh, Granny, we are so hungry and miserable, what can it matter?”

“Well, that’s true enough,” she sighed. “Trouts’ luck is gone; it went

with the Brownie, I believe.”

“Was that _he_, Granny?”

“Yes, my dear, he lived with the Trouts for several generations.”

“What was he like, Granny?”

“Like a little man, they say, my dear.”

“What did he do?”

“He came in before the family were up, and swept up the hearth, and

lighted the fire, and set out the breakfast, and tidied the room, and

did all sorts of house-work. But he never would be seen, and was off

before they could catch him. But they could hear him laughing and

playing about the house sometimes.”

“What a darling! Did they give him any wages, Granny?”

“No! my dear. He did it for love. They set a pancheon of clear water for

him over night, and now and then a bowl of bread and milk, or cream. He

liked that, for he was very dainty. Sometimes he left a bit of money in

the water. Sometimes he weeded the garden or threshed the corn. He saved

endless trouble, both to men and maids.”

“O Granny! why did he go?”

“The maids caught sight of him one night, my dear, and his coat was so

ragged, that they got a new suit, and a linen shirt for him, and laid

them by the bread and milk bowl. But when Brownie saw the things, he put

them on, and dancing round the kitchen, sang,

‘What have we here? Hemten hamten!

Here will I never more tread nor stampen,’

and so danced through the door and never came back again.”

“O Grandmother! But why not? Didn’t he like the new clothes?”

“The Old Owl knows, my dear; I don’t.”

“Who’s the Old Owl, Granny?”

“I don’t exactly know, my dear. It’s what my mother used to say when we

asked anything that puzzled her. It was said that the Old Owl was Nancy

Besom, (a witch, my dear!) who took the shape of a bird, but couldn’t

change her voice, and that that’s why the owl sits silent all day for

fear she should betray herself by speaking, and has no singing voice

like other birds. Many people used to go and consult the Old Owl at

moon-rise, in my young days.”

“Did you ever go, Granny?”

“Once, very nearly, my dear.”

“Oh! tell us, Granny dear.—There are no Corpse-candles, Johnnie; it’s

only moonlight,” he added consolingly, as Johnnie crept closer to his

knee and pricked his little red ears.

“It was when your grandfather was courting me, my dears,” said the old

lady, “and I couldn’t quite make up my mind. So I went to my mother, and

said, ‘He’s this on the one side, but then he’s that on the other, and

so on. Shall I say yes or no?’ And my mother said, ‘The Old Owl knows,’

for she was fairly puzzled. So says I, ‘I’ll go and ask her to-night, as

sure as the moon rises.’

“So at moon-rise I went, and there in the white light by the gate stood

your grandfather. ‘What are you doing here at this time o’ night?’ says

I. ‘Watching your window,’ says he. ‘What are _you_ doing here at this

time o’ night?’ ‘The Old Owl knows,’ said I, and burst out crying.”

“What for?” said Johnnie.

“I can’t rightly tell you, my dear,” said the old lady, “but it gave me

such a turn to see him. And without more ado your grandfather kissed me.

‘How dare you?’ said I. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘The Old Owl knows,’ said

he. So we never went.”

“How stupid!” said Tommy.

“Tell us more about Brownie, please,” said Johnnie. “Did he ever live

with anybody else?”

“There are plenty of Brownies,” said the old lady, “or used to be in my

mother’s young days. Some houses had several.”

“Oh! I wish ours would come back!” cried both the boys in chorus.

“He’d—

“tidy the room,” said Johnnie;

“fetch the turf,” said Tommy;

“pick up the chips,” said Johnnie;

“sort your scraps,” said Tommy;

“and do everything. Oh! I wish he hadn’t gone away.”

“What’s that?” said the Tailor coming in at this moment.

“It’s the Brownie, Father,” said Tommy. “We are so sorry he went, and do

so wish we had one.”

“What nonsense have you been telling them, Mother?” asked the Tailor.

“Heighty teighty,” said the old lady, bristling. “Nonsense, indeed! As

good men as you, Son Thomas, would as soon have jumped off the crags, as

spoken lightly of _them_, in my mother’s young days.”

“Well, well,” said the Tailor, “I beg their pardon. They never did aught

for me, whatever they did for my forbears; but they’re as welcome to the

old place as ever, if they choose to come. There’s plenty to do.”

“Would you mind our setting a pan of water, Father?” asked Tommy very

gently. “There’s no bread and milk.”

“You may set what you like, my lad,” said the Tailor; “and I wish there

were bread and milk for your sakes, Bairns. You should have it, had I

got it. But go to bed now.”

They lugged out a pancheon, and filled it with more dexterity than

usual, and then went off to bed, leaving the knife in one corner, the

wood in another, and a few splashes of water in their track.

There was more room than comfort in the ruined old farm-house, and the

two boys slept on a bed of cut heather, in what had been the old malt

loft. Johnnie was soon in the land of dreams, growing rosier and rosier

as he slept, a tumbled apple among the gray heather. But not so lazy

Tommy. The idea of a domesticated Brownie had taken full possession of

his mind; and whither Brownie had gone, where he might be found, and

what would induce him to return, were mysteries he longed to solve.

“There’s an owl living in the old shed by the mere,” he thought. “It may

be the Old Owl herself, and she knows, Granny says. When father’s gone

to bed, and the moon rises I’ll go.” Meanwhile he lay down.

* * * * * *

The moon rose like gold, and went up into the heavens like silver,

flooding the moors with a pale ghostly light, taking the color out of

the heather, and painting black shadows under the stone walls. Tommy

opened his eyes, and ran to the window. “The moon has risen,” said he,

and crept softly down the ladder, through the kitchen, where was the pan

of water, but no Brownie, and so out on the moor. The air was fresh, not

to say chilly; but it was a glorious night, though everything but the

wind and Tommy seemed asleep. The stones, the walls, the gleaming lanes,

were so intensely still; the church tower in the valley seemed awake and

watching, but silent; the houses in the village round it all had their

eyes shut, that is, their window blinds down; and it seemed to Tommy as

if the very moors had drawn white sheets over them, and lay sleeping

also.

“Hoot! hoot!” said a voice from the fir plantation behind him. Somebody

else was awake, then. “It’s the Old Owl,” said Tommy; and there she

came, swinging heavily across the moor with a flapping stately flight,

and sailed into the shed by the mere. The old lady moved faster than she

seemed to do, and though Tommy ran hard she was in the shed some time

before him. When he got in, no bird was to be seen, but he heard a

crunching sound from above, and looking up, there sat the Old Owl,

pecking and tearing and munching at some shapeless black object, and

blinking at him—Tommy—with yellow eyes.

“Oh dear!” said Tommy, for he didn’t much like it.

The Old Owl dropped the black mass on to the floor; and Tommy did not

care somehow to examine it.

“Come up! come up!” said she, hoarsely.

She could speak, then! Beyond all doubt it was _the_ Old Owl and none

other. Tommy shuddered.

“Come up here! come up here!” said the Old Owl.

The Old Owl sat on a beam that ran across the shed. Tommy had often

climbed up for fun; and he climbed up now, and sat face to face with

her, and thought her eyes looked as if they were made of flame.

“Kiss my fluffy face,” said the Owl.

Her eyes were going round like flaming catherine wheels, but there are

certain requests which one has not the option of refusing. Tommy crept

nearer, and put his lips to the round face out of which the eyes shone.

Oh! it was so downy and warm, so soft, so indescribably soft. Tommy’s

lips sank into it, and couldn’t get to the bottom. It was unfathomable

feathers and fluffyness.

“Now, what do you want?” said the Owl.

“Please,” said Tommy, who felt rather re-assured, “can you tell me where

to find the Brownies, and how to get one to come and live with us?”

“Oohoo!” said the Owl, “that’s it, is it? I know of three Brownies.”

“Hurrah!” said Tommy. “Where do they live?”

“In your house,” said the Owl.

Tommy was aghast.

“In our house!” he exclaimed. “Whereabouts? Let me rummage them out. Why

do they do nothing?”

“One of them is too young,” said the Owl.

“But why don’t the others work?” asked Tommy.

“They are idle, they are idle,” said the Old Owl, and she gave herself

such a shake as she said it, that the fluff went flying through the

shed, and Tommy nearly tumbled off the beam in his fright.

“Then we don’t want them,” said he. “What is the use of having Brownies

if they do nothing to help us?”

“Perhaps they don’t know how, as no one has told them,” said the Owl.

“I wish you would tell me where to find them,” said Tommy; “I could tell

them.”

“Could you?” said the Owl. “Oohoo! Oohoo!” and Tommy couldn’t tell

whether she were hooting or laughing.

“Of course I could,” he said. “They might be up and sweep the house, and

light the fire, and spread the table, and that sort of thing, before

father came down. Besides, they could _see_ what was wanted. The

Brownies did all that in Granny’s mother’s young days. And then they

could tidy the room, and fetch the turf, and pick up my chips, and sort

Granny’s scraps. Oh! there’s lots to do.”

“So there is,” said the Owl. “Oohoo! Well, I can tell you where to find

one of the Brownies; and if you find him, he will tell you where his

brother is. But all this depends upon whether you feel equal to

undertaking it, and whether you will follow my directions.”

“I am quite ready to go,” said Tommy, “and I will do as you shall tell

me. I feel sure I could persuade them. If they only knew how every one

would love them if they made themselves useful!”

“Oohoo! ohoo!” said the Owl. “Now pay attention. You must go to the

north side of the mere when the moon is shining—(‘I know Brownies like

water,’ muttered Tommy)—and turn yourself around three times, saying

this charm:

‘Twist me and turn me, and show me the Elf—

I looked in the water, and saw—’

When you have got so far, look into the water, and at the same moment

you will see the Brownie, and think of a word that will fill up the

couplet, and rhyme with the first line. If either you do not see the

Brownie, or fail to think of the word, it will be of no use.”

“Is the Brownie a mermaid,” said Tommy, wriggling himself along the

beam, “that he lives under water?”

“That depends on whether he has a fish’s tail,” said the Owl, “and this

you can discover for yourself.”

“Well, the moon is shining, so I shall go,” said Tommy. “Good-bye, and

thank you, Ma’am;” and he jumped down and went, saying to himself as he

ran, “I believe he is a merman all the same, or else how could he live

in the mere? I know more about Brownies than Granny does, and I shall

tell her so;” for Tommy was somewhat opinionated, like other young

people.

The moon shone very brightly on the centre of the mere. Tommy knew the

place well for there was a fine echo there. Round the edge grew rushes

and water plants, which cast a border of shadow. Tommy went to the north

side, and turning himself three times, as the old Owl had told him, he

repeated the charm—

‘Twist me, and turn me, and show me the Elf—

I looked in the water, and saw—’

Now for it. He looked in, and saw—the reflection of his own face.

“Why, there’s no one but myself!” said Tommy. “And what can the word be?

I must have done it wrong.”

“Wrong!” said the Echo.

Tommy was almost surprised to find the echo awake at this time of night.

“Hold your tongue!” said he. “Matters are provoking enough of

themselves. Belf! Celf! Delf! Felf! Gelf! Helf! Jelf! What rubbish!

There can’t be a word to fit it. And then to look for Brownie, and see

nothing but myself!”

“Myself!” said the Echo.

“Will you be quiet?” said Tommy. “If you would tell one the word there

would be some sense in your interference; but to roar ‘Myself!’ at one,

which neither rhymes nor runs—it does rhyme though, as it happens,” he

added; “and how very odd! it runs too—

‘Twist me, and turn me, and show me the Elf;

I looked in the water, and saw myself,’

which I certainly did. What can it mean? The Old Owl knows, as Granny

would say; so I shall go back and ask her.”

“Ask her!” said the Echo.

“Didn’t I say I should?” said Tommy. “How exasperating you are! It is

very strange. _Myself_ certainly does rhyme, and I wonder I did not

think of it long ago.”

“Go,” said the Echo.

“Will you mind your own business, and go to sleep?” said Tommy. “I am

going; I said I should.”

And back he went. There sat the Old Owl as before.

“Oohoo!” said she, as Tommy climbed up. “What did you see in the mere?”

“I saw nothing but myself,” said Tommy indignantly.

“And what did you expect to see?” asked the Owl.

“I expected to see a Brownie,” said Tommy; “you told me so.”

“And what are Brownies like, pray?” inquired the Owl.

“The one Granny knew was a useful little fellow, something like a little

man,” said Tommy.

“Ah!” said the Owl, “but you know at present this one is an idle little

fellow, something like a little man. Oohoo! oohoo! Are you quite sure

you didn’t see him?”

“Quite,” answered Tommy sharply. “I saw no one but myself.”

“Hoot! toot! How touchy we are! And who are you, pray?”

“I am not a Brownie,” said Tommy.

“Don’t be too sure,” said the Owl. “Did you find out the word?”

“No,” said Tommy. “I could find no word with any meaning that would

rhyme but ‘myself.’”

“Well, that runs and rhymes,” said the Owl. “What do you want? Where’s

your brother now?”

“In bed in the malt-loft,” said Tommy.

“Then now all your questions are answered,” said the Owl, “and you know

what wants doing, so go and do it. Good-night, or rather good-morning,

for it is long past midnight;” and the old lady began to shake her

feathers for a start.

“Don’t go yet, please,” said Tommy humbly. “I don’t understand it. You

know I’m not a Brownie, am I?”

“Yes, you are,” said the Owl, “and a very idle one too. All children are

Brownies.”

“But I couldn’t do work like a Brownie,” said Tommy.

“Why not?” inquired the Owl. “Couldn’t you sweep the floor, light the

fire, spread the table, tidy the room, fetch the turf, pick up your own

chips, and sort your grandmother’s scraps? You know ‘there’s lots to

do.’”

“But I don’t think I should like it,” said Tommy. “I’d much rather have

a Brownie to do it for me.”

“And what would you do meanwhile?” asked the Owl. “Be idle, I suppose;

and what do you suppose is the use of a man’s having children if they do

nothing to help him? Ah! if they only knew how every one would love them

if they made themselves useful!”

“But is it really and truly so?” asked Tommy, in a dismal voice. “Are

there no Brownies but children?”

“No, there are not,” said the owl. “And pray do you think that the

Brownies, whoever they may be, come into a house to save trouble for the

idle healthy little boys who live in it? Listen to me, Tommy,” said the

old lady, her eyes shooting rays of fire in the dark corner where she

sat. “Listen to me, you are a clever boy, and can understand when one

speaks; so I will tell you the whole history of the Brownies, as it has

been handed down in our family from my grandmother’s great-grandmother,

who lived in the Druid’s Oak, and was intimate with the fairies. And

when I have done you shall tell me what you think they are, if they are

not children. It’s the opinion I have come to at any rate, and I don’t

think that wisdom died with our great-grandmothers.”

“I should like to hear if you please,” said Tommy.

The Old Owl shook out a tuft or two of fluff, and set her eyes a-going,

and began:

“The Brownies, or as they are sometimes called, the Small Folk, the

Little People, or the Good People, are a race of tiny beings who

domesticate themselves in a house of which some grown-up human being

pays the rent and taxes. They are like small editions of men and women,

they are too small and fragile for heavy work; they have not the

strength of a man, but are a thousand times more fresh and nimble. They

can run and jump, and roll and tumble, with marvellous agility and

endurance, and of many of the aches and pains which men and women groan

under, they do not even know the names. They have no trade or

profession, and as they live entirely upon other people, they know

nothing of domestic cares; in fact, they know very little upon any

subject, though they are often intelligent and highly inquisitive. They

love dainties, play, and mischief. They are apt to be greatly beloved,

and are themselves capriciously affectionate. They are little people,

and can only do little things. When they are idle and mischievous, they

are called Boggarts, and are a curse to the house they live in. When

they are useful and considerate, they are Brownies, and are a

much-coveted blessing. Sometimes the Blessed Brownies will take up their

abode with some worthy couple, cheer them with their romp and merry

laughter, tidy the house, find things that have been lost, and take

little troubles out of hands full of great anxieties. Then in time these

Little People are Brownies no longer. They grow up into men and women.

They do not care so much for dainties, play, or mischief. They cease to

jump and tumble, and roll about the house. They know more, and laugh

less. Then, when their heads begin to ache with anxiety, and they have

to labor for their own living, and the great cares of life come on,

other Brownies come and live with them, and take up their little cares,

and supply their little comforts, and make the house merry once more.”

“How nice!” said Tommy.

“Very nice,” said the Old Owl. “But what”—and she shook herself more

fiercely than ever, and glared so that Tommy expected nothing less than

her eyes would set fire to her feathers and she would be burnt alive.

“But what must I say of the Boggarts? Those idle urchins who eat the

bread and milk, and don’t do the work, who lie in bed without an ache or

pain to excuse them, who untidy instead of tidying, cause work instead

of doing it, and leave little cares to heap on big cares, till the old

people who support them are worn out altogether.”

“Don’t!” said Tommy. “I can’t bear it.”

“I hope when Boggarts grow into men,” said the Old Owl, “that their

children will be Boggarts too, and then they’ll know what it is!”

“Don’t!” roared Tommy. “I won’t be a Boggart. I’ll be a Brownie.”

“That’s right,” nodded the Old Owl. “I said you were a boy who could

understand when one spoke. And remember that the Brownies never are seen

at their work. They get up before the household, and get away before any

one can see them. I can’t tell you why. I don’t think my grandmother’s

great-grandmother knew. Perhaps because all good deeds are better done

in secret.”

“Please,” said Tommy, “I should like to go home now, and tell Johnnie.

It’s getting cold, and I am so tired!”

“Very true,” said the Old Owl, “and then you will have to be up early

to-morrow. I think I had better take you home.”

“I know the way, thank you,” said Tommy.

“I didn’t say _shew_ you the way, I said _take_ you—carry you,” said

the Owl. “Lean against me.”

“I’d rather not thank you,” said Tommy.

“Lean against me,” screamed the Owl. “Oohoo! how obstinate boys are to

be sure!”

Tommy crept up, very unwillingly.

“Lean your full weight, and shut your eyes,” said the Owl.

Tommy laid his head against the Old Owl’s feathers, had a vague idea

that she smelt of heather, and thought it must be from living on the

moor, shut his eyes, and leant his full weight, expecting that he and

the Owl would certainly fall off the beam together.

Down—feathers—fluff—he sank and sank, could feel nothing solid,

jumped up with a start to save himself, opened his eyes, and found that

he was sitting among the heather in the malt-loft, with Johnny sleeping

by his side.

“How quickly we came!” said he; “that is certainly a very clever Old

Owl. I couldn’t have counted ten whilst my eyes were shut. How very

odd!”

But what was odder still was, that it was no longer moonlight but early

dawn.

“Get up, Johnnie,” said his brother, “I’ve got a story to tell you.”

And while Johnnie sat up, and rubbed his eyes open, he related his

adventures on the moor.

“Is all that true?” said Johnnie; “I mean, did it really happen?”

“Of course it did,” said his brother; “don’t you believe it?”

“Oh yes,” said Johnny. “But I thought it was perhaps only a true story,

like Granny’s true stories. I believe all these, you know. But if you

were there, you know, it is different—”

“I was there,” said Tommy, “and it’s all just as I tell you: and I tell

you what, if we mean to do anything we must get up: though, oh dear! I

should like to stay in bed. I say,” he added, after a pause, “suppose we

do. It can’t matter being Boggarts for one night more. I mean to be a

Brownie before I grow up, though. I couldn’t stand boggarty children.”

“I won’t be a Boggart at all,” said Johnnie, “it’s horrid. But I don’t

see how we can be Brownies, for I’m afraid we can’t do the things. I

wish I were bigger!”

“I can do it well enough,” said Tommy, following his brother’s example

and getting up. “Don’t you suppose I can light a fire? Think of all the

bonfires we have made! And I don’t think I should mind having a regular

good tidy-up either. It’s that stupid

putting-away-things-when-you’ve-done-with-them that I hate so!”

The Brownies crept softly down the ladder and into the kitchen. There

was the blank hearth, the dirty floor, and all the odds and ends lying

about, looking cheerless enough in the dim light, Tommy felt quite

important as he looked round. There is no such cure for untidiness as

clearing up after other people; one sees so clearly where the fault

lies.

“Look at that door-step, Johnnie,” said the Brownie-elect, “what a mess

you made of it! If you had lifted the moss carefully, instead of

stamping and struggling with it, it would have saved us ten minutes’

work this morning.”

This wisdom could not be gainsaid, and Johnnie only looked meek and

rueful.

“I am going to light the fire,” pursued his brother;—“the next turfs,

you know _we_ must get—you can tidy a bit. Look at the knife I gave you

to hold last night, and that wood—that’s my fault though, and so are

those scraps by Granny’s chair. What are you grubbing at that rat-hole

for?”

Johnnie raised his head somewhat flushed and tumbled.

“What do you think I have found?” said he triumphantly. “Father’s

measure that has been lost for a week!”

“Hurrah!” said Tommy, “put it by his things. That’s just a sort of thing

for a Brownie to have done. What will he say? And I say, Johnnie, when

you’ve tidied, just go and grub up a potato or two in the garden, and

I’ll put them to roast for breakfast. I’m lighting such a bonfire!”

The fire was very successful. Johnnie went after the potatoes, and Tommy

cleaned the door-step, swept the room, dusted the chairs and the old

chest, and set out the table. There was no doubt he could be handy when

he chose.

“I’ll tell you what I have thought of, if we have time,” said Johnnie,

as he washed the potatoes in the water that had been set for Brownie.

“We might run down to the South Pasture for some mushrooms. Father said

the reason we found so few was that people go by sunrise for them to

take to market. The sun’s only just rising, we should be sure to find

some, and they would do for breakfast.”

“There’s plenty of time,” said Tommy; so they went. The dew lay heavy

and thick upon the grass by the road side, and over the miles of network

that the spiders had woven from blossom to blossom of the heather. The

dew is the Sun’s breakfast; but he was barely up yet, and had not eaten

it, and the world felt anything but warm. Nevertheless, it was so sweet

and fresh as it is at no later hour of the day, and every sound was like

the returning voice of a long absent friend. Down to the pastures, where

was more network and more dew, but when one has nothing to speak of in

the way of boots, the state of the ground is of the less consequence.

The Tailor had been right, there was no lack of mushrooms at this time

of the morning. All over the pasture they stood, of all sizes, some like

buttons, some like tables; and in the distance one or two ragged women,

stopping over them with baskets, looked like huge fungi also.

“This is where the fairies feast,” said Tommy. “They had a large party

last night. When they go, they take away the dishes and cups, for they

are made of gold; but they leave their tables, and we eat them.”

“I wonder whether giants would like to eat our tables,” said Johnnie.

This was beyond Tommy’s capabilities of surmise; so they filled a

handkerchief, and hurried back again for fear the Tailor should have

come down-stairs.

They were depositing the last mushroom in a dish on the table, when his

footsteps were heard descending.

“There he is!” exclaimed Tommy. “Remember, we mustn’t be caught. Run

back to bed.”

Johnnie caught up the handkerchief, and smothering their laughter, the

two scrambled back up the ladder, and dashed straight into the heather.

Meanwhile the poor Tailor came wearily down-stairs. Day after day, since

his wife’s death, he had come down every morning to the same desolate

sight—yesterday’s refuse and an empty hearth. This morning task of

tidying was always a sad and ungrateful one to the widowed father. His

awkward struggles with the house-work in which _she_ had been so

notable, chafed him. The dirty kitchen was dreary, the labor lonely, and

it was an hour’s time lost to his trade. But life does not stand still

while one is wishing, and so the Tailor did that for which there was

neither remedy nor substitute; and came down this morning as other

mornings to the pail and broom. When he came in he looked round, and

started, and rubbed his eyes; looked round again, and rubbed them

harder; then went up to the fire and held out his hand, (warm

certainly)—then up to the table and smelt the mushrooms, (esculent

fungi beyond a doubt) handled the loaf, stared at the open door and

window, the swept floor, and the sunshine pouring in, and finally sat

down in stunned admiration. Then he jumped up and ran to the foot of the

stairs, shouting,—

“Mother! Mother! Trout’s luck has come again.” “And yet, no!” he

thought, “the old lady’s asleep, it’s a shame to wake her, I’ll tell

those idle rascally lads, they’ll be more pleased than they deserve. It

was Tommy after all that set the water and caught him.” “Boys! boys!” he

shouted at the foot of the ladder, “the Brownie has come!—and if he

hasn’t found my measure!” he added on returning to the kitchen, “this is

as good as a day’s work to me.”

There was great excitement in the small household that day. The boys

kept their own counsel. The old Grandmother was triumphant, and tried

not to seem surprised. The Tailor made no such vain effort, and remained

till bed-time in a state of fresh and unconcealed amazement.

“I’ve often heard of the Good People,” he broke out towards the end of

the evening. “And I’ve heard folk say they’ve known those that have seen

them capering round the gray rocks on the moor at midnight: but this is

wonderful! To come and do the work for a pan of cold water! Who could

have believed it?”

“You might have believed it if you’d believed me, Son Thomas,” said the

old lady tossily. “I told you so. But young people always know better

than their elders!”

“I didn’t see him,” said the Tailor, beginning his story afresh; “but I

thought as I came in I heard a sort of laughing and rustling.”

“My mother said they often heard him playing and laughing about the

house,” said the old lady. “I told you so.”

“Well, he shan’t want for a bowl of bread and milk to-morrow, anyhow,”

said the Tailor, “if I have to stick to Farmer Swede’s waistcoat till

midnight.”

But the waistcoat was finished by bed-time, and the Tailor set the bread

and milk himself, and went to rest.

“I say,” said Tommy, when both the boys were in bed, “the Old Owl was

right, and we must stick to it. But I’ll tell you what I don’t like, and

that is, father thinking we’re idle still. I wish he knew we were the

Brownies.”

“So do I,” said Johnnie; and he sighed.

“I tell you what,” said Tommy, with the decisiveness of elder

brotherhood, “we’ll keep quiet for a bit for fear we should leave off;

but when we’ve gone on a good while, I shall tell him. It was only the

Old Owl’s grandmother’s great-grandmother who said it was to be kept

secret, and the Old Owl herself said grandmothers were not always in the

right.”

“No more they are,” said Johnnie; “look at Granny about this.”

“I know,” said Tommy. “She’s in a regular muddle.”

“So she is,” said Johnnie. “But that’s rather fun, I think.”

And they went to sleep.

Day after day went by, and still the Brownies “stuck to it,” and did

their work. It is no such very hard matter after all to get up early

when one is young and light-hearted, and sleeps upon heather in a loft

without window-blind, and with so many broken window-panes that the air

comes freely in. In old times the boys used to play at tents among the

heather, while the Tailor did the house-work; now they came down and did

it for him.

Size is not everything, even in this material existence. One has heard

of dwarfs who were quite as clever, (not to say as powerful,) as giants,

and I do not fancy that Fairy Godmothers are ever very large. It is

wonderful what a comfort Brownies may be in the house that is fortunate

enough to hold them! The Tailor’s Brownies were the joy of his life; and

day after day they seemed to grow more and more ingenious in finding

little things to do for his good.

Now-a-days Granny never picked a scrap for herself. One day’s shearings

were all neatly arranged the next morning, and laid by her

knitting-pins; and the Tailor’s tape and shears were no more absent

without leave.

One day a message came to him to offer him two or three days’ tailoring

in a farmhouse some miles up the valley. This was pleasant and

advantageous sort of work; good food, sure pay, and a cheerful change;

but he did not know how he could leave his family, unless, indeed, the

Brownie might be relied upon to “keep the house together,” as they say.

The boys were sure that he would, and they promised to set his water,

and to give as little trouble as possible; so, finally, the Tailor took

up his shears and went up the valley, where the green banks sloped up

into purple moor, or broke into sandy rocks, crowned with nodding oak

fern. On to the prosperous old farm, where he spent a very pleasant

time, sitting level with the window geraniums on a table set apart for

him, stitching and gossiping, gossiping and stitching, and feeling

secure of honest payment when his work was done. The mistress of the

house was a kind good creature, and loved a chat; and though the Tailor

kept his own secret as to the Brownies, he felt rather curious to know

if the Good People had any hand in the comfort of this flourishing

household, and watched his opportunity to make a few careless inquiries

on the subject.

“Brownies?” laughed the dame. “Ay, Master, I have heard of them. When I

was a girl, in service at the old hall, on Cowberry Edge, I heard a good

deal of one they said had lived there in former times. He did housework

as well as a woman, and a good deal quicker, they said. One night one of

the young ladies (that were then, they’re all dead now,) hid herself in

a cupboard, to see what he was like.”

“And what was he like?” inquired the Tailor, as composedly as he was

able.

“A little fellow, they said;” answered the Farmer’s wife, knitting

calmly on. “Like a dwarf, you know, with a largish head for his body.

Not taller than—why, my Bill, or your eldest boy, perhaps. And he was

dressed in rags, with an old cloak on, and stamping with passion at a

cobweb he couldn’t get at with his broom. They’ve very uncertain

tempers, they say. Tears one minute and laughing the next.”

“You never had one here, I suppose?” said the Tailor.

“Not we,” she answered; “and I think I’d rather not. They’re not canny

after all; and my master and me have always been used to work, and we’ve

sons, and daughters to help us, and that’s better than meddling with the

Fairies, to my mind. No! no!” she added, laughing, “If we had had one

you’d have heard of it, whoever didn’t, for I should have had some

decent clothes made for him. I couldn’t stand rags and old cloaks,

messing and moth-catching in my house.”

“They say it’s not lucky to give them clothes, though,” said the Tailor;

“they don’t like it.”

“Tell me!” said the dame, “as if any one that liked a tidy room,

wouldn’t like tidy clothes, if they could get them. No! no! when we have

one, you shall take his measure, I promise you.”

And this was all the Tailor got out of her on the subject. When his work

was finished, the Farmer paid him at once; and the good dame added half

a cheese, and a bottle-green coat.

“That has been laid by for being too small for the master now he’s so

stout,” she said; “but except for a stain or two it’s good enough, and

will cut up like new for one of the lads.”

The Tailor thanked them, and said farewell, and went home. Down the

valley, where the river, wandering between the green banks and the sandy

rocks, was caught by giant mosses, and bands of fairy fern, and there

choked and struggled, and at last barely escaped with an existence, and

ran away in a diminished stream. On up the purple hills to the old

ruined house. As he came in at the gate he was struck by some idea of

change, and looking again, he saw that the garden had been weeded, and

was comparatively tidy. The truth is, that Tommy and Johnnie had taken

advantage of the Tailor’s absence to do some Brownie’s work in the

daytime.

“It’s that Blessed Brownie!” said the Tailor. “Has he been as usual?” he

asked, when he was in the house.

“To be sure,” said the old lady; “all has been well, Son Thomas.”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said the Tailor, after a pause. “I’m a needy

man, but I hope I’m not ungrateful. I can never repay the Brownie for

what he has done for me and mine; but the mistress up yonder has given

me a bottle-green coat that will cut up as good as new; and as sure as

there’s a Brownie in this house, I’ll make him a suit of it.”

“You’ll _what_?” shrieked the old lady. “Son Thomas, Son Thomas, you’re

mad! Do what you please for the Brownies, but never make them clothes.”

“There’s nothing they want more,” said the Tailor, “by all accounts.

They’re all in rags, as well they may be, doing so much work.”

“If you make clothes for this Brownie, he’ll go for good,” said the

Grandmother, in a voice of awful warning.

“Well, I don’t know,” said her son. “The mistress up at the farm is

clever enough, I can tell you; and as she said to me, fancy any one that

likes a tidy room, not liking a tidy coat!” For the Tailor, like most

men, was apt to think well of the wisdom of woman-kind in other houses.

“Well, well,” said the old lady, “go your own way. I’m an old woman, and

my time is not long. It doesn’t matter much to me. But it was new

clothes that drove the Brownie out before, and Trout’s luck went with

him.”

“I know, Mother,” said the Tailor, “and I’ve been thinking of it all the

way home; and I can tell you why it was. Depend upon it, _the clothes

didn’t fit_. But I’ll tell you what I mean to do. I shall measure them

by Tommy—they say the Brownies are about his size—and if ever I turned

out a well-made coat and waistcoat, they shall be his.”

“Please yourself,” said the old lady, and she would say no more.

“I think you’re quite right, Father,” said Tommy, “and if I can, I’ll

help you to make them.”

Next day the father and son set to work, and Tommy contrived to make

himself so useful, that the Tailor hardly knew how he got through so

much work.

“It’s not like the same thing,” he broke out at last, “to have some one

a bit helpful about you; both for the tailoring and for company’s sake.

I’ve not done such a pleasant morning’s work since your poor mother

died. I’ll tell you what it is, Tommy,” he added, “if you were always

like this, I shouldn’t much care whether Brownie stayed or went. I’d

give up his help to have yours.”

“I’ll be back directly,” said Tommy, who burst out of the room in search

of his brother.

“I’ve come away,” he said squatting down, “because I can’t bear it. I

very nearly let it all out, and I shall soon. I wish the things weren’t

going to come to me,” he added, kicking a stone in front of him. “I wish

he’d measured you, Johnnie.”

“I’m very glad he didn’t,” said Johnnie. “I wish he’d kept them

himself.”

“Bottle-green, with brass buttons,” murmured Tommy, and therewith fell

into a reverie.

The next night the suit was finished, and laid by the bread and milk.

“We shall see,” said the old lady, in a withering tone. There is not

much real prophetic wisdom in this truism, but it sounds very awful, and

the Tailor went to bed somewhat depressed.

Next morning the Brownies came down as usual.

“Don’t they look splendid?” said Tommy, feeling the cloth. “When we’ve

tidied the place I shall put them on.”

But long before the place was tidy, he could wait no longer, and dressed

up.

“Look at me!” he shouted; “bottle-green and brass buttons! Oh, Johnnie,

I wish you had some.”

“It’s a good thing there are two Brownies,” said Johnnie, laughing, “and

one of them in rags still. I shall do the work this morning.” And he

went flourishing round with a broom, while Tommy jumped madly about in

his new suit. “Hurrah!” he shouted, “I feel just like the Brownie. What

was it Grannie said he sang when he got his clothes? Oh, I know—

‘What have we here? Hemten hamten,

Here will I never more tread nor stampen.’”

And on he danced, regardless of the clouds of dust raised by Johnnie, as

he drove the broom indiscriminately over the floor, to the tune of his

own laughter.

It was laughter which roused the Tailor that morning, laughter coming

through the floor from the kitchen below. He scrambled on his things and

stole down stairs.

“It’s the Brownie,” he thought; “I must look, if it’s for the last

time.”

At the door he paused and listened. The laughter was mixed with singing,

and he heard the words—

“What have we here? Hemten hamten,

Here will I never more tread nor stampen.”

He pushed in, and this was the sight that met his eyes.

The kitchen in its primeval condition of chaos, the untidy particulars

of which were the less apparent, as everything was more or less obscured

by the clouds of dust, where Johnnie reigned triumphant, like a witch

with her broomstick; and, to crown all, Tommy capering and singing in

the Brownie’s bottle-green suit, brass buttons and all.

“What’s this?” shouted the astonished Tailor, when he could find breath

to speak.

“It’s the Brownies,” sang the boys; and on they danced, for they had

worked themselves up into a state of excitement from which it was not

easy to settle down.

“Where _is_ Brownie?” shouted the father.

“He’s here,” said Tommy; “we are the Brownies.”

“Can’t you stop that fooling?” cried the Tailor, angrily. “This is past

a joke. Where is the real Brownie, I say?”

“We are the only Brownies, really, father,” said Tommy, coming to a full

stop, and feeling strongly tempted to run down from laughing to crying.

“Ask the Old Owl. It’s true, really.”

The Tailor saw the boy was in earnest, and passed his hand over his

forehead.

“I suppose I’m getting old,” he said; “I can’t see daylight through

this. If you are the Brownie, who has been tidying the kitchen lately?”

“We have,” said they.

“But who found my measure?”

“I did,” said Johnnie.

“And who sorts your grandmother’s scraps?”

“We do,” said they.

“And who sets breakfast, and puts my things in order?”

“We do,” said they.

“But when do you do it?” asked the Tailor.

“Before you come down,” said they.

“But I always have to call you,” said the Tailor.

“We get back to bed again,” said the boys.

“But how was it you never did it before!” asked the Tailor doubtfully.

“We were idle, we were idle,” said Tommy.

The Tailor’s voice rose to a pitch of desperation—

“But if you do the work,” he shouted, “_Where is the Brownie?_”

“Here!” cried the boys, “and we are very sorry we were Boggarts so

long.”

With which the father and sons fell into each other’s arms and fairly

wept.

* * * * * *

It will be believed that to explain all this to the Grandmother was not

the work of a moment. She understood it all at last, however, and the

Tailor could not restrain a little good-humored triumph on the subject.

Before he went to work he settled her down in the window with her

knitting, and kissed her.

“What do you think of it all, Mother?” he inquired.

“Bairns are a blessing,” said the old lady, tartly. “_I told you so._”

* * * * *

“That’s not the end, is it?” asked one of the boys in a tone of dismay,

for the Doctor had paused here.

“Yes it is,” said he.

“But couldn’t you make a little more end?” asked Deordie, “to tell us

what became of them all?”

“I don’t see what there is to tell,” said the Doctor.

“Why, there’s whether they ever saw the Old Owl again, and whether Tommy

and Johnnie went on being Brownies,” said the children.

The Doctor laughed.

“Well, be quiet for five minutes,” he said.

“We’ll be as quiet as mice,” said the children.

And as quiet as mice they were. Very like mice, indeed. Very like mice

behind a wainscot at night, when you have just thrown something to

frighten them away. Death-like stillness for a few seconds, and then all

the rustling and scuffling you please. So the children sat holding their

breath for a moment or two, and then shuffling feet and smothered bursts

of laughter testified to their impatience, and to the difficulty of

understanding the process of story-making as displayed by the Doctor,

who sat pulling his beard, and staring at his boots, as he made up “a

little more end.”

“Well,” he said, sitting up suddenly, “the Brownies went on with their

work in spite of the bottle-green suit, and Trout’s luck returned to the

old house once more. Before long Tommy began to work for the farmers,

and Baby grew up into a Brownie, and made (as girls are apt to make) the

best house-sprite of all. For, in the Brownie habits of self-denial,

thoughtfulness, consideration, and the art of little kindnesses, boys

are, I am afraid, as a general rule, somewhat behindhand with their

sisters. Whether this altogether proceeds from constitutional deficiency

on these points in the masculine character, or is one result among many

of the code of by-laws which obtains in men’s moral education from the

cradle, is a question on which everybody has their own opinion. For the

present the young gentlemen may appropriate whichever theory they

prefer, and we will go back to the story. The Tailor lived to see his

boy-Brownies become men, with all the cares of a prosperous farm on

their hands, and his girl-Brownie carry her fairy talents into another

home. For these Brownies—young ladies!—are much desired as wives,

whereas a man might as well marry an old witch as a young Boggartess.”

“And about the Owl?” clamored the children, rather resentful of the

Doctor’s pausing to take breath.

“Of course,” he continued, “the Tailor heard the whole story, and being

both anxious to thank the Old Owl for her friendly offices, and also

rather curious to see and hear her, he went with the boys one night at

moon-rise to the shed by the mere. It was earlier in the evening than

when Tommy went, for before daylight had vanished—and at the first

appearance of the moon, the impatient Tailor was at the place. There

they found the Owl, looking very solemn and stately on the beam. She was

sitting among the shadows with her shoulders up, and she fixed her eyes

so steadily on the Tailor, that he felt quite overpowered. He made her a

civil bow, however, and said—

“I’m much obliged to you, Ma’am, for your good advice to my Tommy.”

The Owl blinked sharply, as if she grudged shutting her eyes for an

instant, and then stared on, but not a word spoke she.

“I don’t mean to intrude, Ma’am,” said the Tailor; “but I was wishful to

pay my respects and gratitude.”

Still the Owl gazed in determined silence.

“Don’t you remember me?” said Tommy pitifully. “I did everything you

told me. Won’t you even say good-bye?” and he went up towards her.

The Owl’s eyes contracted, she shuddered a few tufts of fluff into the

shed, shook her wings, and shouting “Oohoo!” at the top of her voice,

flew out upon the moor. The Tailor and his sons rushed out to watch her.

They could see her clearly against the green twilight sky, flapping

rapidly away with her round face to the pale moon. “Good-bye!” they

shouted as she disappeared; first the departing owl, then a shadowy body

with flapping sails, then two wings beating the same measured time, then

two moving lines still to the old tune, then a stroke, a fancy, and

then—the green sky and the pale moon, but the Old Owl was gone.

“Did she never come back?” asked Tiny in subdued tones, for the Doctor

had paused again.

“No,” said he; “at least not to the shed by the mere. Tommy saw many

owls after this in the course of his life; but as none of them would

speak, and as most of them were addicted to the unconventional customs

of staring and winking, he could not distinguish his friend, if she were

among them. And now I think that is all.”

“Is that the very very end?” asked Tiny.

“The very very end,” said the Doctor.

“I suppose there might be more and more ends,” speculated

Deordie—“about whether the Brownies had any children when they grew

into farmers, and whether the children were Brownies, and whether _they_

had other Brownies, and so on and on.” And Deordie rocked himself among

the geraniums, in the luxurious imagination of an endless fairy tale.

“You insatiable rascal!” said the Doctor. “Not another word. Jump up,

for I’m going to see you home. I have to be off early to-morrow.”

“Where?” said Deordie.

“Never mind. I shall be away all day, and I want to be at home in good

time in the evening, for I mean to attack that crop of groundsel between

the sweet-pea hedges. You know, no Brownies come to my homestead!”

And the Doctor’s mouth twitched a little till he fixed it into a stiff

smile.

The children tried hard to extract some more ends out of him on the way

to the Rectory; but he declined to pursue the history of the Trout

family through indefinite generations. It was decided on all hands,

however, that Tommy Trout was evidently one and the same with Tommy

Trout who pulled the cat out of the well, because “it was just a sort of

thing for a Brownie to do, you know!” and that Johnnie Green (who, of

course, was not Johnnie Trout,) was some unworthy village acquaintance,

and “a thorough Boggart.”

“Doctor!” said Tiny, as they stood by the garden-gate, “how long do you

think gentlemen’s pocket-handkerchiefs take to wear out?”

“That, my dear Madam,” said the Doctor, “must depend, like other

terrestrial matters, upon circumstances; whether the gentleman bought

fine cambric, or coarse cotton with pink portraits of the reigning

Sovereign, to commence with; whether he catches many colds, has his

pocket picked, takes snuff, or allows his washerwoman to use washing

powders. But why do you want to know?”

“I shan’t tell you that,” said Tiny, who was spoilt by the Doctor, and

consequently tyrannized in proportion; “but I will tell you what I mean

to do. I mean to tell Mother that when Father wants any more pocket

handkerchiefs hemmed, she had better put them by the bath in the

nursery, and perhaps some Brownie will come and do them.”

“Kiss my fluffy face!” said the Doctor in sepulchral tones.

“The owl is too high up,” said Tiny, tossing her head.

The Doctor lifted her four feet or so, obtained his kiss, and set her

down again.

“You’re not fluffy at all,” said she in a tone of the utmost contempt;

“you’re tickly and bristly. Puss is more fluffy, and Father is scrubby

and scratchy, because he shaves.”

“And which of the three styles do you prefer?” said the Doctor.

“Not tickly and bristly,” said Tiny with firmness, and she strutted up

the walk for a pace or two, and then turned round to laugh over her

shoulder.

“Good-night!” shouted her victim, shaking his fist after her.

The other children took a noisy farewell, and they all raced into the

house, to give joint versions of the fairy tale, first to the parents in

the drawing-room, and then to nurse in the nursery.

The Doctor went home also, with his poodle at his heels, but not by the

way he came. He went out of his way, which was odd; but then the Doctor

was “a little odd,” and moreover this was always the end of his evening

walk. Through the church-yard, where spreading cedars and stiff yews

rose from the velvet grass, and where among tombstones and crosses of

various devices lay one of older and uglier date, by which he stayed. It

was framed by a border of the most brilliant flowers, and it would seem

as if the Doctor must have been the gardener, for he picked off some

dead ones, and put them absently in his pocket. Then he looked round, as

if to see that he was alone. Not a soul was to be seen, and the

moonlight and shadow lay quietly side by side, as the dead do in their

graves. The Doctor stooped down and took off his hat.

“Good-night, Marcia,” he said, in a low quiet voice. “Good-night, my

darling!” The dog licked his hand, but there was no voice to answer, nor

any that regarded.

Poor foolish Doctor! Most foolish to speak to the departed with his face

earthwards. But we are weak mortals, the best of us; and this man (one

of the very best) raised his head at last, and went home like a lonely

owl with his face to the moon and the sky.

A BORROWED BROWNIE.

“I can’t imagine,” said the Rector, walking into the drawing-room the

following afternoon; “I can’t imagine where Tiny is. I want her to drive

to the other end of the parish with me.”

“There she comes,” said his wife, looking out of the window, “by the

garden-gate, with a great basket; what has she been after?”

The Rector went out to discover, and met his daughter looking decidedly

earthy, and seemingly much exhausted by the weight of a basketful of

groundsel plants.

“Where have you been?” said he.

“In the Doctor’s garden,” said Tiny triumphantly; “and look what I have

done? I’ve weeded his sweet-peas, and brought away the groundsel; so

when he gets home to-night he’ll think a Brownie has been in the garden,

for Mrs. Pickles has promised not to tell him.”

“But look here!” said the Rector, affecting a great appearance of

severity, “you’re my Brownie, not his. Supposing Tommy Trout had gone

and weeded Farmer Swede’s garden, and brought back his weeds to go to

seed on the Tailor’s flower-beds, how do you think he would have liked

it?”

Tiny looked rather crestfallen. When one has fairly carried through a

splendid benevolence of this kind, it is trying to find oneself in the

wrong. She crept up to the Rector, however, and put her golden head upon

his arm.

“But, Father dear,” she pleaded, “I didn’t mean not to be your Brownie;

only, you know, you had got five left at home, and it was only for a

short time, and the Doctor hasn’t any Brownie at all. Don’t you pity

him?”

And the Rector, who was old enough to remember that grave-stone story we

wot of, hugged his Brownie in his arms, and answered—

“My Darling, I do pity him!”

THE LAND OF LOST TOYS.

AN EARTHQUAKE IN THE NURSERY.

It was certainly an aggravated offence. It is generally understood in

families that “boys will be boys,” but there is a limit to the

forbearance implied in the extenuating axiom. Master Sam was condemned

to the back nursery for the rest of the day.

He always had had the knack of breaking his own toys,—he not

unfrequently broke other people’s; but accidents will happen, and his

twin sister and factotum, Dot, was long-suffering.

Dot was fat, resolute, hasty, and devotedly unselfish. When Sam scalped

her new doll, and fastened the glossy black curls to a wigwam improvised

with the curtains of the four-post bed in the best bedroom, Dot was

sorely tried. As her eyes passed from the crownless doll on the floor to

the floss-silk ringlets hanging from the bed-furniture, her round rosy

face grew rounder and rosier, and tears burst from her eyes. But in a

moment more she clenched her little fists, forced back the tears, and

gave vent to her favorite saying, “I don’t care.”

That sentence was Dot’s bane and antidote; it was her vice and her

virtue. It was her standing consolation, and it brought her into all her

scrapes. It was her one panacea for all the ups and downs of her life

(and in the nursery where Sam developed his organ of destructiveness

there were ups and downs not a few); and it was the form her naughtiness

took when she was naughty.

“Don’t care fell into a goose-pond, Miss Dot,” said nurse, on one

occasion of the kind.

“I don’t care if he did,” said Miss Dot; and as nurse knew no further

feature of the goose-pond adventure which met this view of it, she

closed the subject by putting Dot into the corner.

In the strength of _Don’t care_, and her love for Sam, Dot bore much and

long. Her dolls perished by ingenious but untimely deaths. Her toys were

put to purposes for which they were never intended, and suffered

accordingly. But Sam was penitent, and Dot was heroic. Florinda’s scalp

was mended with a hot knitting-needle and a perpetual bonnet, and Dot

rescued her paint-brushes from the glue-pot, and smelt her India-rubber

as it boiled down in Sam’s water-proof manufactory, with long-suffering

forbearance.

There are, however, as we have said, limits to everything. An earthquake

celebrated with the whole contents of the toy cupboard is not to be

borne.

The matter was this. Early one morning Sam announced that he had a

glorious project on hand. He was going to give a grand show and

entertainment, far surpassing all the nursery imitations of circuses,

conjurors, lectures on chemistry, and so forth, with which they had ever

amused themselves. He refused to confide his plans to the faithful Dot;

but he begged her to lend him all the toys she possessed, in return for

which she was to be the sole spectator of the fun. He let out that the

idea had suggested itself to him after the sight of a Diorama to which

they had been taken, but he would not allow that it was anything of the

same kind; in proof of which she was at liberty to keep back her

paint-box. Dot tried hard to penetrate the secret, and to reserve some

of her things from the general conscription. But Sam was obstinate. He

would tell nothing, and he wanted everything. The dolls, the bricks

(especially the bricks), the tea-things, the German farm, the Swiss

cottages, the animals, and all the dolls’ furniture. Dot gave them with

a doubtful mind, and consoled herself as she watched Sam carrying pieces

of board and a green table cover into the back nursery, with the

prospect of a show. At last, Sam threw open the door and ushered her

into the nursery rocking-chair.

The boy had certainly some constructive as well as destructive talent.

Upon a sort of impromptu table covered with green cloth he had arranged

all the toys in rough imitation of a town, with its streets and

buildings. The relative proportion of the parts was certainly not good;

but it was not Sam’s fault that the doll’s house and the German farm,

his own brick buildings, and the Swiss cottages, were all on totally

different scales of size. He had ingeniously put the larger things in

the foreground, keeping the small farm-buildings from the German box at

the far end of the streets, yet after all the perspective was extreme.

The effect of three large horses from the toy stables in front, with the

cows from the small Noah’s Ark in the distance, was admirable; but the

big dolls seated in an unroofed building, made with the wooden bricks on

no architectural principle but that of a pound, and taking tea out of

the new china tea-things, looked simply ridiculous.

Dot’s eyes, however, saw no defects, and she clapped vehemently.

“Here, ladies and gentlemen,” said Sam, waving his hand politely towards

the rocking-chair, “you see the great city of Lisbon, the capital of

Portugal——”

At this display of geographical accuracy Dot fairly cheered, and rocked

herself to and fro in unmitigated enjoyment.

“——as it appeared,” continued the showman, “on the morning of November

1st, 1755.”

Never having had occasion to apply Mangnall’s Questions to the

exigencies of every-day life, this date in no way disturbed Dot’s

comfort.

“In this house,” Sam proceeded, “a party of Portuguese ladies of rank

may be seen taking tea together.”

“_Breakfast_, you mean,” said Dot; “you said it was in the morning, you

know.”

“Well, they took tea to their breakfast,” said Sam. “Don’t interrupt me.

You are the audience, and you mustn’t speak. Here you see the horses of

the English ambassador out airing with his groom. There you see two

peasants—no! they are _not_ Noah and his wife, Dot, and if you go on

talking I shall shut up. I say they are peasants peacefully driving

cattle. At this moment a rumbling sound startles every one in the

city”—here Sam rolled some croquet balls up and down in a box, but the

dolls sat as quiet as before, and Dot alone was startled,—“this was

succeeded by a slight shock”—here he shook the table, which upset some

of the buildings belonging to the German farm.—“Some houses fell.”—Dot

began to look anxious.—“This shock was followed by several

others.”—“Take care,” she begged—“of increasing magnitude”—“Oh, Sam!”

Dot shrieked, jumping up, “you’re breaking the china!”—“The largest

buildings shook to their foundations,”—“Sam! Sam! the doll’s house is

falling,” Dot cried, making wild efforts to save it: but Sam held her

back with one arm, whilst with the other he began to pull at the boards

which formed his table—“Suddenly the ground split and opened with a

fearful yawn”—Dot’s shrieks shamed the impassive dolls, as Sam jerked

out the boards by a dextrous movement, and doll’s house, brick

buildings, the farm, the Swiss cottages, and the whole toy-stock of the

nursery, sank together in ruins. Quite unabashed by the evident damage,

Sam continued—“and in a moment the whole magnificent city of Lisbon was

swallowed up. Dot! Dot! don’t be a muff! What’s the matter? It’s

splendid fun. Things must be broken sometime, and I’m sure it was

exactly like the real thing. Dot! why don’t you speak? Dot! my dear Dot!

You don’t care, do you? I didn’t think you’d mind it so. It was such a

splendid earthquake. Oh! try not to go on like that!”

But Dot’s feelings were far beyond her own control, much more that of

Master Sam, at this moment. She was gasping and choking, and when at

last she found breath it was only to throw herself on her face upon the

floor with bitter and uncontrollable sobbing.

It was certainly a mild punishment that condemned Master Sam to the back

nursery for the rest of the day. It had, however, this additional

severity, that during the afternoon Aunt Penelope was expected to

arrive.

AUNT PENELOPE.

Aunt Penelope was one of those dear, good souls, who, single themselves,

have, as real or adopted relatives, the interests of a dozen families,

instead of one, at heart. There are few people whose youth has not owned

the influence of at least one such friend. It may be a good habit, the

first interest in some life-loved pursuit or favorite author, some

pretty feminine art, or delicate womanly counsel enforced by those

narratives of real life that are more interesting than any fiction: it

may be only the periodical return of gifts and kindness, and the store

of family histories that no one else can tell; but we all owe something

to such an aunt or uncle—the fairy godmothers of real life.

The benefits which Sam and Dot reaped from Aunt Penelope’s visits, may

be summed up under the heads of presents and stories, with a general

leaning to indulgence in the matters of punishment, lessons, and going

to bed, which perhaps is natural to aunts and uncles who have no

positive responsibilities in the young people’s education, and are not

the daily sufferers by the lack of due discipline.