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+Project Gutenberg's The Brownies and Other Tales, by Juliana Horatia Ewing
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Brownies and Other Tales
+
+Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing
+
+Release Date: June 13, 2005 [EBook #16052]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BROWNIES AND OTHER TALES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Erika Q. Stokes and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BROWNIES
+
+AND OTHER TALES.
+
+BY
+
+JULIANA HORATIA EWING.
+
+
+LONDON:
+
+SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
+
+NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.
+
+NEW YORK: E. & J.B. YOUNG & CO.
+
+
+[Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee.]
+
+
+DEDICATED
+
+TO
+
+MY VERY DEAR AND HONOURED MOTHER.
+
+J.H.E.
+
+1871.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+THE BROWNIES
+
+THE LAND OF LOST TOYS
+
+THREE CHRISTMAS TREES
+
+AN IDYLL OF THE WOOD
+
+CHRISTMAS CRACKERS
+
+AMELIA AND THE DWARFS
+
+
+
+
+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 crow's feathers
+on the top, and grey 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 soldiers' 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 nagging 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
+grey 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 churchyard 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 churchyard, 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
+splendour, 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 favoured 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 his 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
+churchyard; 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 wonderful 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 the doorstep, 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, Johnnie, 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 churchyard. 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 don't you
+tell us about the Fairies?"
+
+"Hush! hush! my dear. 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."
+
+"O Granny, we are so hungry and miserable, what can it matter?"
+
+"Well, that's true enough," she sighed. "Trout's 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 Nanny
+Besom (a witch, my dear!), who took the shape of a bird, but couldn't
+change her voice, and 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 grey 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 colour 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 to 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 had all 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 fluffiness.
+
+"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! oohoo!" 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 round 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 merman," 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 a 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'm 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 the 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 romps 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 labour 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
+that 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 _show_ 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 Johnnie
+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 Johnnie. "But I thought it was perhaps only a true
+story, like Granny's true stories. I believe all those, 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 that 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've 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, stooping 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
+labour 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 grey 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 sha'n'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-blinds, 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 farm-house 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
+house-work 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 womankind 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 Granny 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 did the work," he shouted, "_where is the Brownie?_"
+
+"Here!" cried the boys, "and we are very sorry that 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-humoured 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's 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 bye-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?" clamoured 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 imagining of an endless
+fairy tale.
+
+"You insatiable rascal!" said the Doctor. "Not another word. Jump up,
+for I am 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 the 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
+pockets picked, takes snuff, or allows his washerwoman to use washing
+powders. But why do you want to know?"
+
+"I sha'n'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 space 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 crown-less 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 favourite 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 waterproof 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 the 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, Dot. 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
+everyone 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, while 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 dexterous 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 is the matter? It's splendid fun. Things must be broken some
+time, 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 favourite
+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.
+
+Aunt Penelope's presents were lovely. Aunt Penelope's stories were
+charming. There was generally a moral wrapped up in them, like the
+motto in a cracker-bonbon; but it was quite in the inside, so to speak,
+and there was abundance of smart paper and sugar-plums.
+
+All things considered, it was certainly most proper that the
+much-injured Dot should be dressed out in her best, and have access to
+dessert, the dining-room, and Aunt Penelope, whilst Sam was kept
+up-stairs. And yet it was Dot who (her first burst of grief being over)
+fought stoutly for his pardon all the time she was being dressed, and
+was afterwards detected in the act of endeavouring to push fragments of
+raspberry tart through the nursery keyhole.
+
+"You GOOD thing!" Sam emphatically exclaimed, as he heard her in fierce
+conflict on the other side of the door with the nurse who found
+her--"You GOOD thing! leave me alone, for I deserve it."
+
+He really was very penitent He was too fond of Dot not to regret the
+unexpected degree of distress he had caused her; and Dot made much of
+his penitence in her intercessions in the drawing-room.
+
+"Sam is so very sorry," she said; "he says he knows he deserves it. I
+think he ought to come down. He is so _very_ sorry!"
+
+Aunt Penelope, as usual, took the lenient side, joining her entreaties
+to Dot's, and it ended in Master Sam's being hurriedly scrubbed and
+brushed, and shoved into his black velvet suit, and sent down-stairs,
+rather red about the eyelids, and looking very sheepish.
+
+"Oh, Dot!" he exclaimed, as soon as he could get her into a corner, "I
+am so very, very sorry! particularly about the tea-things."
+
+"Never mind," said Dot, "I don't care; and I've asked for a story, and
+we're going into the library." As Dot said this, she jerked her head
+expressively in the direction of the sofa, where Aunt Penelope was just
+casting on stitches preparatory to beginning a pair of her famous
+ribbed socks for Papa, whilst she gave to Mamma's conversation that
+sympathy which (like her knitting-needles) was always at the service of
+her large circle of friends. Dot anxiously watched the bow on the top
+of her cap as it danced and nodded with the force of Mamma's
+observations. At last it gave a little chorus of jerks, as one should
+say, "Certainly, undoubtedly." And then the story came to an end, and
+Dot, who had been slowly creeping nearer, fairly took Aunt Penelope by
+the hand, and carried her off, knitting and all, to the library.
+
+"Now, please," said Dot, when she had struggled into a chair that was
+too tall for her.
+
+"Stop a minute!" cried Sam, who was perched in the opposite one, "the
+horse-hair tickles my legs."
+
+"Put your pocket-handkerchief under them, as I do," said Dot.
+"_Now_, Aunt Penelope."
+
+"No, wait," groaned Sam; "it isn't big enough; it only covers one leg."
+
+Dot slid down again, and ran to Sam.
+
+"Take my handkerchief for the other."
+
+"But what will you do?" said Sam.
+
+"Oh, I don't care," said Dot, scrambling back into her place. "Now,
+Aunty, please."
+
+And Aunt Penelope began.
+
+
+"THE LAND OF LOST TOYS.
+
+"I suppose people who have children transfer their childish follies and
+fancies to them, and become properly sedate and grown-up. Perhaps it is
+because I am an old maid, and have none, that some of my nursery whims
+stick to me, and I find myself liking things, and wanting things, quite
+out of keeping with my cap and time of life. For instance. Anything in
+the shape of a toy-shop (from a London bazaar to a village window, with
+Dutch dolls, leather balls, and wooden battledores) quite unnerves me,
+so to speak. When I see one of those boxes containing a jar, a churn, a
+kettle, a pan, a coffee-pot, a cauldron on three legs, and sundry
+dishes, all of the smoothest wood, and with the immemorial red flower
+on one side of each vessel, I fairly long for an excuse for playing
+with them, and for trying (positively for the last time) if the lids
+_do_ come off, and whether the kettle will (literally, as well as
+metaphorically) hold water. Then if, by good or ill luck, there is a
+child flattening its little nose against the window with longing eyes,
+my purse is soon empty; and as it toddles off with a square parcel
+under one arm, and a lovely being in black ringlets and white tissue
+paper in the other, I wish that I were worthy of being asked to join
+the ensuing play. Don't suppose there is any generosity in this. I have
+only done what we are all glad to do. I have found an excuse for
+indulging a pet weakness. As I said, it is not merely the new and
+expensive toys that attract me; I think my weakest corner is where the
+penny boxes lie, the wooden tea-things (with the above-named flower in
+miniature), the soldiers on their lazy tongs, the nine-pins, and the
+tiny farm.
+
+"I need hardly say that the toy booth in a village fair tries me very
+hard. It tried me in childhood, when I was often short of pence, and
+when 'the Feast' came once a year. It never tried me more than on one
+occasion, lately, when I was re-visiting my old home.
+
+"It was deep Midsummer, and the Feast. I had children with me of course
+(I find children, somehow, wherever I go), and when we got into the
+fair, there were children of people whom I had known as children, with
+just the same love for a monkey going up one side of a yellow stick and
+coming down the other, and just as strong heads for a giddy-go-round on
+a hot day and a diet of peppermint lozenges, as their fathers and
+mothers before them. There were the very same names--and here and there
+it seemed the very same faces--I knew so long ago. A few shillings were
+indeed well expended in brightening those familiar eyes: and then there
+were the children with me.... Besides, there really did seem to be an
+unusually nice assortment of things, and the man was very intelligent
+(in reference to his wares):.... Well, well! It was two o'clock P.M.
+when we went in at one end of that glittering avenue of drums, dolls,
+trumpets, accordions, workboxes, and what not; but what o'clock it was
+when I came out at the other end, with a shilling and some coppers in
+my pocket, and was cheered, I can't say, though I should like to have
+been able to be accurate about the time, because of what followed.
+
+"I thought the best thing I could do was to get out of the fair at
+once, so I went up the village and struck off across some fields into a
+little wood that lay near. (A favourite walk in old times.) As I turned
+out of the booth, my foot struck against one of the yellow sticks of
+the climbing monkeys. The monkey was gone, and the stick broken. It set
+me thinking as I walked along.
+
+"What an untold number of pretty and ingenious things one does (not
+wear out in honourable wear and tear, but) utterly lose, and wilfully
+destroy, in one's young days--things that would have given pleasure to
+so many more young eyes, if they had been kept a little longer--things
+that one would so value in later years, if some of them had survived
+the dissipating and destructive days of Nurserydom. I recalled a young
+lady I knew, whose room was adorned with knick-knacks of a kind I had
+often envied. They were not plaster figures, old china, wax-work
+flowers under glass, or ordinary ornaments of any kind. They were her
+old toys. Perhaps she had not had many of them, and had been the more
+careful of those she had. She had certainly been very fond of them, and
+had kept more of them than any one I ever knew. A faded doll slept in
+its cradle at the foot of her bed. A wooden elephant stood on the
+dressing-table, and a poodle that had lost his bark put out a
+red-flannel tongue with quixotic violence at a windmill on the opposite
+corner of the mantelpiece. Everything had a story of its own. Indeed
+the whole room must have been redolent with the sweet story of
+childhood, of which the toys were the illustrations, or like a poem of
+which the toys were the verses. She used to have children to play with
+them sometimes, and this was a high honour. She is married now, and has
+children of her own, who on birthdays and holidays will forsake the
+newest of their own possessions to play with 'mamma's toys.'
+
+"I was roused from these recollections by the pleasure of getting into
+the wood.
+
+"If I have a stronger predilection than my love for toys, it is my love
+for woods, and, like the other, it dates from childhood. It was born
+and bred with me, and I fancy will stay with me till I die. The
+soothing scents of leaf-mould, moss, and fern (not to speak of
+flowers)--the pale green veil in spring, the rich shade in summer, the
+rustle of the dry leaves in autumn, I suppose an old woman may enjoy
+all these, my dears, as well as you. But I think I could make 'fairy
+jam' of hips and haws in acorn cups now, if any child would be
+condescending enough to play with me. "_This_ wood, too, had
+associations.
+
+"I strolled on in leisurely enjoyment, and at last seated myself at the
+foot of a tree to rest. I was hot and tired; partly with the mid-day
+heat and the atmosphere of the fair, partly with the exertion of
+calculating change in the purchase of articles ranging in price from
+three farthings upwards. The tree under which I sat was an old friend.
+There was a hole at its base that I knew well. Two roots covered with
+exquisite moss ran out from each side, like the arms of a chair, and
+between them there accumulated year after year a rich, though tiny
+store of dark leaf-mould. We always used to say that fairies lived
+within, though I never saw anything go in myself but wood-beetles.
+There was one going in at that moment.
+
+"How little the wood was changed! I bent my head for a few seconds,
+and, closing my eyes, drank in the delicious and suggestive scents of
+earth and moss about the dear old tree. I had been so long parted from
+the place that I could hardly believe that I was in the old familiar
+spot. Surely it was only one of the many dreams in which I had played
+again beneath those trees! But when I re-opened my eyes there was the
+same hole, and, oddly enough, the same beetle or one just like it. I
+had not noticed till that moment how much larger the hole was than it
+used to be in my young days.
+
+"'I suppose the rain and so forth wears them away in time,' I said
+vaguely.
+
+"'I suppose it does,' said the beetle politely; 'will you walk in?'
+
+"I don't know why I was not so overpoweringly astonished as you would
+imagine. I think I was a good deal absorbed in considering the size of
+the hole, and the very foolish wish that seized me to do what I had
+often longed to do in childhood, and creep in. I _had_ so much
+regard for propriety as to see that there was no one to witness the
+escapade. Then I tucked my skirts round me, put my spectacles into my
+pocket for fear they should get broken, and in I went.
+
+"I must say one thing. A wood is charming enough (no one appreciates it
+more than myself), but, if you have never been there, you have no idea
+how much nicer it is inside than on the surface. Oh, the mosses--the
+gorgeous mosses! The fretted lichens! The fungi like flowers for
+beauty, and the flowers like nothing you have ever seen!
+
+"Where the beetle went to I don't know. I could stand up now quite
+well, and I wandered on till dusk in unwearied admiration. I was among
+some large beeches as it grew dark, and was beginning to wonder how I
+should find my way (not that I had lost it, having none to lose), when
+suddenly lights burst from every tree, and the whole place was
+illuminated. The nearest approach to this scene that I ever witnessed
+above ground was in a wood near the Hague in Holland. There, what look
+like tiny glass tumblers holding floating wicks, are fastened to the
+trunks of the fine old trees, at intervals of sufficient distance to
+make the light and shade mysterious, and to give effect to the full
+blaze when you reach the spot where hanging chains of lamps illuminate
+the 'Pavilion' and the open space where the band plays, and where the
+townsfolk assemble by hundreds to drink coffee and enjoy the music. I
+was the more reminded of the Dutch 'bosch' because, after wandering
+some time among the lighted trees, I heard distant sounds of music, and
+came at last upon a glade lit up in a similar manner, except that the
+whole effect was incomparably more brilliant.
+
+"As I stood for a moment doubting whether I should proceed, and a good
+deal puzzled about the whole affair, I caught sight of a large spider
+crouched up in a corner with his stomach on the ground and his knees
+above his head, as some spiders do sit, and looking at me, as I
+fancied, through a pair of spectacles. (About the spectacles I do not
+feel sure. It may have been two of his bent legs in apparent connection
+with his prominent eyes.) I thought of the beetle, and said civilly,
+'Can you tell me, sir, if this is Fairyland?' The spider took off his
+spectacles (or untucked his legs), and took a sideways run out of his
+corner.
+
+"'Well,' he said, 'it's a Province. The fact is, it's the Land of Lost
+Toys. You haven't such a thing as a fly anywhere about you, have you?'
+
+"'No,' I said, 'I'm sorry to say I have not.' This was not strictly
+true, for I was not at all sorry; but I wished to be civil to the old
+gentleman, for he projected his eyes at me with such an intense (I had
+almost said greedy) gaze, that I felt quite frightened.
+
+"'How did you pass the sentries?' he inquired.
+
+"'I never saw any,' I answered.
+
+"'You couldn't have seen anything if you didn't see them,' he said;
+'but perhaps you don't know. They're the glow-worms. Six to each tree,
+so they light the road, and challenge the passers-by. Why didn't they
+challenge you?'
+
+"'I don't know,' I began, 'unless the beetle--'
+
+"'I don't like beetles,' interrupted the spider, stretching each leg in
+turn by sticking it up above him, 'all shell, and no flavour. You never
+tried walking on anything of that sort, did you?' and he pointed with
+one leg to a long thread that fastened a web above his head.
+
+"'Certainly not,' said I.
+
+"'I'm afraid it wouldn't bear you,' he observed slowly.
+
+"'I'm quite sure it wouldn't,' I hastened to reply. I wouldn't try for
+worlds. It would spoil your pretty work in a moment. Good-evening.'
+
+"And I hurried forward. Once I looked back, but the spider was not
+following me. He was in his hole again, on his stomach, with his knees
+above his head, and looking (apparently through his spectacles) down
+the road up which I came.
+
+"I soon forgot him in the sight before me. I had reached the open place
+with the lights and the music; but how shall I describe the spectacle
+that I beheld?
+
+"I have spoken of the effect of a toy-shop on my feelings. Now imagine
+a toy-fair, brighter and gayer than the brightest bazaar ever seen,
+held in an open glade, where forest-trees stood majestically behind the
+glittering stalls, and stretched their gigantic arms above our heads,
+brilliant with a thousand hanging lamps. At the moment of my entrance
+all was silent and quiet. The toys lay in their places looking so
+incredibly attractive that I reflected with disgust that all my ready
+cash, except one shilling and some coppers, had melted away amid the
+tawdry fascinations of a village booth. I was counting the coppers
+(sevenpence halfpenny), when all in a moment a dozen sixpenny fiddles
+leaped from their places and began to play, accordions of all sizes
+joined them, the drumsticks beat upon the drums, the penny trumpets
+sounded, and the yellow flutes took up the melody on high notes, and
+bore it away through the trees. It was weird fairy-music, but quite
+delightful. The nearest approach to it that I know of above ground is
+to hear a wild dreamy air very well whistled to a pianoforte
+accompaniment.
+
+"When the music began, all the toys rose. The dolls jumped down and
+began to dance. The poodles barked, the pannier donkeys wagged their
+ears, the wind-mills turned, the puzzles put themselves together, the
+bricks built houses, the balls flew from side to side, the battledores
+and shuttlecocks kept it up among themselves, and the skipping-ropes
+went round, the hoops ran off, and the sticks ran after them, the
+cobbler's wax at the tails of all the green frogs gave way, and they
+jumped at the same moment, whilst an old-fashioned go-cart ran madly
+about with nobody inside. It was most exhilarating.
+
+"I soon became aware that the beetle was once more at my elbow.
+
+"'There are some beautiful toys here,' I said.
+
+"'Well, yes,' he replied, 'and some odd-looking ones too. You see,
+whatever has been really used by any child as a plaything gets a right
+to come down here in the end; and there is some very queer company, I
+assure you. Look there.'
+
+"I looked, and said, 'It seems to be a potato.'
+
+"'So it is,' said the beetle. 'It belonged to an Irish child in one of
+your great cities. But to whom the child belonged I don't know, and I
+don't think he knew himself. He lived in the corner of a dirty,
+overcrowded room, and into this corner, one day, the potato rolled. It
+was the only plaything he ever had. He stuck two cinders into it for
+eyes, scraped a nose and mouth, and loved it. He sat upon it during the
+day, for fear it should be taken from him, but in the dark he took it
+out and played with it. He was often hungry, but he never ate that
+potato. When he died it rolled out of the corner, and was swept into
+the ashes. Then it came down here.'
+
+"'What a sad story!' I exclaimed.
+
+"The beetle seemed in no way affected.
+
+"'It is a curious thing,' he rambled on, 'that potato takes quite a
+good place among the toys. You see, rank and precedence down here is
+entirely a question of age; that is, of the length of time that any
+plaything has been in the possession of a child; and all kinds of ugly
+old things hold the first rank; whereas the most costly and beautiful
+works of art have often been smashed or lost by the spoilt children of
+rich people in two or three days. If you care for sad stories, there is
+another queer thing belonging to a child who died.'
+
+"It appeared to be a large sheet of canvas with some strange kind of
+needlework upon it.
+
+"'It belonged to a little girl in a rich household,' the beetle
+continued; 'she was an invalid, and difficult to amuse. We have lots of
+her toys, and very pretty ones too. At last some one taught her to make
+caterpillars in wool-work. A bit of work was to be done in a certain
+stitch and then cut with scissors, which made it look like a hairy
+caterpillar. The child took to this, and cared for nothing else. Wool
+of every shade was procured for her, and she made caterpillars of all
+colours. Her only complaint was that they did not turn into
+butterflies. However, she was a sweet, gentle-tempered child, and she
+went on, hoping that they would do so, and making new ones. One day she
+was heard talking and laughing in her bed for joy. She said that all
+the caterpillars had become butterflies of many colours, and that the
+room was full of them. In that happy fancy she died.'
+
+"'And the caterpillars came down here?'
+
+"'Not for a long time,' said the beetle; 'her mother kept them while
+_she_ lived, and then they were lost and came down. No toys come
+down here till they are broken or lost.'
+
+"'What are those sticks doing here?' I asked.
+
+"The music had ceased, and all the toys were lying quiet. Up in a
+corner leaned a large bundle of walking-sticks. They are often sold in
+toy-shops, but I wondered on what grounds they came here.
+
+"'Did you ever meet with a too benevolent old gentleman wondering where
+on earth his sticks go to?' said the beetle. 'Why do they lend them to
+their grandchildren? The young rogues use them as hobby-horses and lose
+them, and down they come, and the sentinels cannot stop them. The real
+hobby-horses won't allow them to ride with them, however. There was a
+meeting on the subject. Every stick was put through an examination.
+"Where is your nose? Where is your mane? Where are your wheels?" The
+last was a poser. Some of them had got noses, but none of them had got
+wheels. So they were not true hobby-horses. Something of the kind
+occurred with the elder-whistles.'
+
+"'The what?' I asked.
+
+"'Whistles that boys make of elder-sticks with the pith scooped out,'
+said the beetle. 'The real instruments would not allow them to play
+with them. The elder-whistles said they would not have joined had they
+been asked. They were amateurs, and never played with professionals. So
+they have private concerts with the combs and curl-papers. But, bless
+you, toys of this kind are endless here! Teetotums made of old cotton
+reels, tea-sets of acorn cups, dinner-sets of old shells, monkeys made
+of bits of sponge, all sorts of things made of breastbones and
+merrythoughts, old packs of cards that are always building themselves
+into houses and getting knocked down when the band begins to play,
+feathers, rabbits' tails--'
+
+"'Ah! I have heard about the rabbits' tails,' I said.
+
+"'There they are,' the beetle continued; 'and when the band plays you
+will see how they skip and run. I don't believe you would find out that
+they had no bodies, for my experience of a warren is, that when rabbits
+skip and run it is the tails chiefly that you do see. But of all the
+amateur toys the most successful are the boats. We have a lake for our
+craft, you know, and there's quite a fleet of boats made out of old
+cork floats in fishing villages. Then, you see, the old bits of cork
+have really been to sea, and seen a good deal of service on the
+herring-nets, and so they quite take the lead of the smart shop ships,
+that have never been beyond a pond or a tub of water. But that's an
+exception. Amateur toys are mostly very dowdy. Look at that box.'
+
+"I looked, thought I must have seen it before, and wondered why a very
+common-looking box without a lid should affect me so strangely, and why
+my memory should seem struggling to bring it back out of the past.
+Suddenly it came to me--it was our old Toy Box.
+
+"I had completely forgotten that nursery institution till recalled by
+the familiar aspect of the inside, which was papered with proof-sheets
+of some old novel on which black stars had been stamped by way of
+ornament. Dim memories of how these stars, and the angles of the box,
+and certain projecting nails interfered with the letter-press and
+defeated all attempts to trace the thread of the nameless narrative,
+stole back over my brain; and I seemed once more, with my head in the
+Toy Box, to beguile a wet afternoon by apoplectic endeavours to follow
+the fortunes of Sir Charles and Lady Belinda, as they took a favourable
+turn in the left-hand corner at the bottom of the trunk.
+
+"'What are you staring at?' said the beetle.
+
+"'It's my old Toy Box!' I exclaimed.
+
+"The beetle rolled on to his back, and struggled helplessly with his
+legs: I turned him over. (Neither the first nor the last time of my
+showing that attention to beetles.)
+
+"'That's right,' he said, 'set me on my legs. What a turn you gave me!
+You don't mean to say you have any toys here? If you have, the sooner
+you make your way home the better.'
+
+"'Why?' I inquired.
+
+"'Well,' he said, 'there's a very strong feeling in the place. The toys
+think that they are ill-treated, and not taken care of by children in
+general. And there is some truth in it. Toys come down here by scores
+that have been broken the first day. And they are all quite resolved
+that if any of their old masters or mistresses come this way they shall
+be punished.'
+
+"'How will they be punished?' I inquired.
+
+"'Exactly as they did to their toys, their toys will do to them. All is
+perfectly fair and regular.'
+
+"'I don't know that I treated mine particularly badly,' I said; 'but I
+think I would rather go.'
+
+"'I think you'd better,' said the beetle. 'Good-evening!' and I saw him
+no more.
+
+"I turned to go, but somehow I lost the road. At last, as I thought, I
+found it, and had gone a few steps when I came on a detachment of
+wooden soldiers, drawn up on their lazy tongs. I thought it better to
+wait till they got out of the way, so I turned back, and sat down in a
+corner in some alarm. As I did so, I heard a click, and the lid of a
+small box covered with mottled paper burst open, and up jumped a figure
+in a blue striped shirt and a rabbit-skin beard, whose eyes were
+intently fixed on me. He was very like my old Jack-in-a-box. My back
+began to creep, and I wildly meditated escape, frantically trying at
+the same time to recall whether it were I or my brother who originated
+the idea of making a small bonfire of our own one 5th of November, and
+burning the old Jack-in-a-box for Guy Fawkes, till nothing was left of
+him but a twirling bit of red-hot wire and a strong smell of frizzled
+fur. At this moment he nodded to me and spoke.
+
+"'Oh! that's you, is it?' he said.
+
+"'No, it's not,' I answered hastily; for I was quite demoralized by
+fear and the strangeness of the situation.
+
+"'Who is it, then?' he inquired.
+
+"'I'm sure I don't know,' I said; and really I was so confused that I
+hardly did.
+
+"'Well, _we_ know,' said the Jack-in-a-box, 'and that's all that's
+needed. Now, my friends,' he continued, addressing the toys who had
+begun to crowd round us, 'whoever recognizes a mistress and remembers a
+grudge--the hour of our revenge has come. Can we any of us forget the
+treatment we received at her hands? No! When we think of the ingenious
+fancy, the patient skill, that went to our manufacture; that fitted the
+delicate joints and springs, laid on the paint and varnish, and gave
+back-hair-combs and ear-rings to our smallest dolls, we feel that we
+deserved more care than we received. When we reflect upon the kind
+friends who bought us with their money, and gave us away in the
+benevolence of their hearts, we know that for their sakes we ought to
+have been longer kept and better valued. And when we remember that the
+sole object of our own existence was to give pleasure and amusement to
+our possessors, we have no hesitation in believing that we deserved a
+handsomer return than to have had our springs broken, our paint
+dirtied, and our earthly careers so untimely shortened by wilful
+mischief or fickle neglect. My friends, the prisoner is at the bar.'
+
+"'I am not,' I said; for I was determined not to give in as long as
+resistance was possible. But as I said it I became aware, to my
+unutterable amazement, that I was inside the go-cart. How I got there
+is to this moment a mystery to me--but there I was.
+
+"There was a great deal of excitement about the Jack-in-a-box's speech.
+It was evident that he was considered an orator, and, indeed, I have
+seen counsel in a real court look wonderfully like him. Meanwhile, my
+old toys appeared to be getting together. I had no idea that I had had
+so many. I had really been very fond of most of them, and my heart beat
+as the sight of them recalled scenes long forgotten, and took me back
+to childhood and home. There were my little gardening tools, and my
+slate, and there was the big doll's bedstead, that had a real mattress,
+and real sheets and blankets, all marked with the letter D, and a
+work-basket made in the blind school, and a shilling School of Art
+paint-box, and a wooden doll we used to call the Dowager, and
+innumerable other toys which I had forgotten till the sight of them
+recalled them to my memory, but which have again passed from my mind.
+Exactly opposite to me stood the Chinese mandarin, nodding as I had
+never seen him nod since the day when I finally stopped his
+performances by ill-directed efforts to discover how he did it.
+
+"And what was that familiar figure among the rest, in a yellow silk
+dress and maroon velvet cloak and hood trimmed with black lace? How
+those clothes recalled the friends who gave them to me! And surely this
+was no other than my dear doll Rosa--the beloved companion of five
+years of my youth, whose hair I wore in a locket after I was grown up.
+No one could say I had ill-treated _her_. Indeed, she fixed her
+eyes on me with a most encouraging smile--but then she always smiled,
+her mouth was painted so.
+
+"'All whom it may concern, take notice,' shouted the Jack-in-a-box, at
+this point, 'that the rule of this honourable court is tit for tat.'
+
+"'Tit, tat, tumble two,' muttered the slate in a cracked voice. (How
+well I remembered the fall that cracked it, and the sly games of tit
+tat that varied the monotony of our long multiplication sums!)
+
+"'What are you talking about?' said the Jack-in-a-box, sharply; 'if you
+have grievances, state them, and you shall have satisfaction, as I told
+you before.'
+
+"'---- and five make nine,' added the slate promptly, 'and six are
+fifteen, and eight are twenty-seven--there we go again.' I wonder why I
+never get up to the top of a line of figures right. It will never prove
+at this rate.'
+
+"'His mind is lost in calculations,' said the Jack-in-a-box,
+'besides--between ourselves--he has been "cracky" for some time. Let
+some one else speak, and observe that no one is at liberty to pass a
+sentence on the prisoner heavier than what he has suffered from her. I
+reserve _my_ judgment to the last.'
+
+"'I know what that will be,' thought I; 'oh dear! oh dear! that a
+respectable maiden lady should live to be burnt as a Guy Fawkes!'
+
+"'Let the prisoner drink a gallon of iced water at once, and then be
+left to die of thirst.'
+
+"The horrible idea that the speaker might possibly have the power to
+enforce his sentence diverted my attention from the slate, and I looked
+round. In front of the Jack-in-a-box stood a tiny red flower-pot and
+saucer, in which was a miniature cactus. My thoughts flew back to a
+bazaar in London where, years ago, a stand of these fairy plants had
+excited my warmest longings, and where a benevolent old gentleman whom
+I had not seen before, and never saw again, bought this one and gave it
+to me. Vague memories of his directions for repotting and tending it
+reproached me from the past. My mind misgave me that after all it had
+died a dusty death for lack of water. True, the cactus tribe being
+succulent plants do not demand much moisture, but I had reason to fear
+that, in this instance, the principle had been applied too far, and
+that after copious baths of cold spring water in the first days of its
+popularity it had eventually perished by drought. I suppose I looked
+guilty, for it nodded its prickly head towards me, and said, 'Ah! you
+know me. You remember what I was, do you? Did you ever think of what I
+might have been? There was a fairy rose which came down here not long
+ago--a common rose enough, in a broken pot patched with string and
+white paint. It had lived in a street where it was the only pure
+beautiful thing your eyes could see. When the girl who kept it died
+there were eighteen roses upon it. She was eighteen years old, and they
+put the roses in the coffin with her when she was buried. That was
+worth living for. Who knows what I might have done? And what right had
+you to cut short a life that might have been useful?'
+
+"Before I could think of a reply to these too just reproaches, the
+flower-pot enlarged, the plant shot up, putting forth new branches as
+it grew; then buds burst from the prickly limbs, and in a few moments
+there hung about it great drooping blossoms of lovely pink, with long
+white tassels in their throats. I had been gazing at it some time in
+silent and self-reproachful admiration, when I became aware that the
+business of this strange court was proceeding, and that the other toys
+were pronouncing sentence against me.
+
+"'Tie a string round her neck and take her out bathing in the brooks,'
+I heard an elderly voice say in severe tones. It was the Dowager Doll.
+She was inflexibly wooden, and had been in the family for more than one
+generation.
+
+"'It's not fair,' I exclaimed, 'the string was only to keep you from
+being carried away by the stream. The current is strong and the bank
+steep by the Hollow Oak Pool, and you had no arms or legs. You were old
+and ugly, but you would wash, and we loved you better than many waxen
+beauties.'
+
+"'Old and ugly!' shrieked the Dowager. 'Tear her wig off! Scrub the
+paint off her face! Flatten her nose on the pavement! Saw off her legs
+and give her no crinoline! Take her out bathing, I say, and bring her
+home in a wheelbarrow with fern roots on the top of her.'
+
+"I was about to protest again, when the paint-box came forward, and
+balancing itself in an artistic, undecided kind of way on two
+camel's-hair brushes which seemed to serve it for feet, addressed the
+Jack-in-a-box.
+
+"'Never dip your paint into the water. Never put your brush into your
+mouth--"
+
+"'That's not evidence,' said the Jack-in-a-box.
+
+"'Your notions are crude,' said the paint-box loftily; 'it's in print,
+and here, all of it, or words to that effect;' with which he touched
+the lid, as a gentleman might lay his hand upon his heart.
+
+"'It's not evidence,' repeated the Jack-in-a-box. 'Let us proceed.'
+
+"'Take her to pieces and see what she's made of, if you please,'
+tittered a pretty German toy that moved to a tinkling musical
+accompaniment. 'If her works are available after that it will be an era
+in natural science.'
+
+"The idea tickled me, and I laughed.
+
+"'Hard-hearted wretch!' growled the Dowager Doll.
+
+"'Dip her in water and leave her to soak on a white soup-plate,' said
+the paint-box; 'if that doesn't soften her feelings, deprive me of my
+medal from the School of Art!'
+
+"'Give her a stiff neck!' muttered the mandarin. 'Ching Fo! give her a
+stiff neck.'
+
+"'Knock her teeth out,' growled the rake in a scratchy voice; and then
+the tools joined in chorus.
+
+"'Take her out when it's fine and leave her out when it's wet, and lose
+her in--
+
+"'The coal-hole,' said the spade.
+
+"'The hay-field,' said the rake.
+
+"'The shrubbery,' said the hoe.
+
+"This difference of opinion produced a quarrel, which in turn seemed to
+affect the general behaviour of the toys, for a disturbance arose which
+the Jack-in-a-box vainly endeavoured to quell. A dozen voices shouted
+for a dozen different punishments, and (happily for me) each toy
+insisted upon its own wrongs being the first to be avenged, and no one
+would hear of the claims of any one else being attended to for an
+instant. Terrible sentences were passed, which I either failed to hear
+through the clamour then, or have forgotten now. I have a vague idea
+that several voices cried that I was to be sent to wash in somebody's
+pocket; that the work-basket wished to cram my mouth with unfinished
+needlework; and that through all the din the thick voice of my old
+leather ball monotonously repeated:
+
+"'Throw her into the dust-hole.'
+
+"Suddenly a clear voice pierced the confusion, and Rosa tripped up.
+
+"'My dears,' she began, 'the only chance of restoring order is to
+observe method. Let us follow our usual rule of precedence. I claim the
+first turn as the prisoner's oldest toy.'
+
+"'That you are not, Miss,' snapped the Dowager; 'I was in the family
+for fifty years.'
+
+"'In the family. Yes, ma'am; but you were never her doll in particular.
+I was her very own, and she kept me longer than any other plaything. My
+judgment must be first.'
+
+"'She is right,' said the Jack-in-a-box; 'and now let us get on. The
+prisoner is delivered unreservedly into the hands of our trusty and
+well-beloved Rosa--doll of the first class--for punishment according to
+the strict law of tit for tat.'
+
+"'I shall request the assistance of the pewter tea-things,' said Rosa,
+with her usual smile. 'And now, my love,' she added, turning to me, 'we
+will come and sit down.'
+
+"Where the go-cart vanished to I cannot remember, nor how I got out of
+it; I only know that I suddenly found myself free, and walking away
+with my hand in Rosa's. I remember vacantly feeling the rough edge of
+the stitches on her flat kid fingers, and wondering what would come
+next.
+
+"'How very oddly you hold your feet, my dear,' she said; 'you stick out
+your toes in such an eccentric fashion, and you lean on your legs as if
+they were table legs, instead of supporting yourself by my hand. Turn
+your heels well out, and bring your toes together. You may even let
+them fold over each other a little; it is considered to have a pretty
+effect among dolls,'
+
+"Under one of the big trees Miss Rosa made me sit down, propping me
+against the trunk as if I should otherwise have fallen; and in a moment
+more a square box of pewter tea-things came tumbling up to our feet,
+where the lid burst open, and all the tea-things fell out in perfect
+order; the cups on the saucers, the lid on the teapot, and so on.
+
+"'Take a little tea, my love?' said Miss Rosa, pressing a pewter teacup
+to my lips.
+
+"I made believe to drink, but was only conscious of inhaling a draught
+of air with a slight flavour of tin. In taking my second cup I was
+nearly choked with the teaspoon, which got into my throat.
+
+"'What are you doing?' roared the Jack-in-a-box at this moment; 'you
+are not punishing her.'
+
+"'I am treating her as she treated me,' answered Rosa, looking as
+severe as her smile would allow. 'I believe that tit for tat is the
+rule, and that at present it is my turn.'
+
+"'It will be mine soon,' growled the Jack-in-a-box, and I thought of
+the bonfire with a shudder. However, there was no knowing what might
+happen before his turn did come, and meanwhile I was in friendly hands.
+It was not the first time my dolly and I had sat together under a tree,
+and, truth to say, I do not think she had any injuries to avenge.
+
+"'When your wig comes off,' murmured Rosa, as she stole a pink kid arm
+tenderly round my neck, 'I'll make you a cap with blue and white
+rosettes, and pretend that you have had a fever.'
+
+"I thanked her gratefully, and was glad to reflect that I was not yet
+in need of an attention which I distinctly remember having shown to her
+in the days of her dollhood. Presently she jumped up.
+
+"'I think you shall go to bed now, dear,' she said, and, taking my hand
+once more, she led me to the big doll's bedstead, which, with its
+pretty bed-clothes and white dimity furniture, looked tempting enough
+to a sleeper of suitable size. It could not have supported one quarter
+of my weight.
+
+"'I have not made you a night-dress, my love,' Rosa continued; 'I am
+not fond of my needle, you know. _You_ were not fond of your needle, I
+think, I fear you must go to bed in your clothes, my dear.'
+
+"'You are very kind,' I said, 'but I am not tired, and--it would not
+bear my weight.'
+
+"'Pooh! pooh!' said Rosa. 'My love! I remember passing one Sunday in it
+with the rag-doll, and the Dowager, and the Punch and Judy (the amount
+of pillow their two noses took up I shall never forget!), and the old
+doll that had nothing on, because her clothes were in the dolls' wash
+and did not get ironed on Saturday night, and the Highlander, whose
+things wouldn't come off, and who slept in his kilt. Not bear you?
+Nonsense! You must go to bed, my dear. I've got other things to do, and
+I can't leave you lying about.'
+
+"'The whole lot of you did not weigh one quarter of what I do,' I cried
+desperately. 'I cannot and will not get into that bed; I should break
+it all to pieces, and hurt myself into the bargain.'
+
+"'Well, if you will not go to bed I must put you there,' said Rosa, and
+without more ado, she snatched me up in her kid arms, and laid me down.
+
+"Of course it was just as I expected. I had hardly touched the two
+little pillows (they had a meal-baggy smell from being stuffed with
+bran), when the woodwork gave way with a crash, and I
+fell--fell--fell--
+
+"Though I fully believed every bone in my body to be broken, it was
+really a relief to get to the ground. As soon as I could, I sat up, and
+felt myself all over. A little stiff, but, as it seemed, unhurt. Oddly
+enough, I found that I was back again under the tree; and more strange
+still, it was not the tree where I sat with Rosa, but the old oak-tree
+in the little wood. Was it all a dream? The toys had vanished, the
+lights were out, the mosses looked dull in the growing dusk, the
+evening was chilly, the hole no larger than it was thirty years ago,
+and when I felt in my pocket for my spectacles I found that they were
+on my nose.
+
+"I have returned to the spot many times since, but I never could induce
+a beetle to enter into conversation on the subject, the hole remains
+obstinately impassable, and I have not been able to repeat my visit to
+the Land of Lost Toys.
+
+"When I recall my many sins against the playthings of my childhood, I
+am constrained humbly to acknowledge that perhaps this is just as
+well."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SAM SETS UP SHOP.
+
+"I think you might help me, Dot," cried Sam, in dismal and rather
+injured tones.
+
+It was the morning following the day of the earthquake, and of Aunt
+Penelope's arrival. Sam had his back to Dot, and his face to the fire,
+over which indeed he had bent for so long that he appeared to be half
+roasted.
+
+"What do you want?" asked Dot, who was working at a doll's night-dress
+that had for long been partly finished, and now seemed in a fair way to
+completion.
+
+"It's the glue-pot," Sam continued. "It does take so long to boil. And
+I have been stirring at the glue with a stick for ever so long to get
+it to melt. It is very hot work. I wish you would take it for a bit.
+It's as much for your good as for mine."
+
+"Is it?" said Dot.
+
+"Yes, it is, Miss," cried Sam. "You must know I've got a splendid
+idea."
+
+"Not another earthquake, I hope?" said Dot, smiling.
+
+"Now, Dot, that's truly unkind of you. I thought it was to be
+forgotten."
+
+"So it is," said Dot, getting up. "I was only joking. What is the
+idea?"
+
+"I don't think I shall tell you till I have finished my shop. I want to
+get to it now, and I wish you would take a turn at the glue-pot."
+
+Sam was apt to want a change of occupation. Dot, on the other hand, was
+equally averse from leaving what she was about till it was finished, so
+they suited each other like Jack Sprat and his wife. It had been an
+effort to Dot to leave the night-dress which she had hoped to finish at
+a sitting; but when she was fairly set to work on the glue business she
+never moved till the glue was in working order, and her face as red as
+a ripe tomato.
+
+By this time Sam had set up business in the window-seat, and was
+fastening a large paper inscription over his shop. It ran thus:--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                MR. SAM.
+
+_Dolls' Doctor and Toymender to Her Majesty
+the Queen, and all other Potentates_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Splendid!" shouted Dot, who was serving up the glue as if it had been
+a kettle of soup, and who looked herself very like an over-toasted
+cook.
+
+Sam took the glue, and began to bustle about.
+
+"Now, Dot, get me all the broken toys, and we'll see what we can do.
+And here's a second splendid idea. Do you see that box? Into that we
+shall put all the toys that are quite spoiled and cannot possibly be
+mended. It is to be called the Hospital for Incurables. I've got a
+placard for that. At least it's not written yet, but here's the paper,
+and perhaps you would write it, Dot, for I am tired of writing, and I
+want to begin the mending."
+
+"For the future," he presently resumed, "when I want a doll to scalp or
+behead, I shall apply to the Hospital for Incurables, and the same with
+any other toy that I want to destroy. And you will see, my dear Dot,
+that I shall be quite a blessing to the nursery; for I shall attend the
+dolls gratis, and keep all the furniture in repair."
+
+Sam really kept his word. He had a natural turn for mechanical work,
+and, backed by Dot's more methodical genius, he prolonged the days of
+the broken toys by skilful mending, and so acquired an interest in them
+which was still more favourable to their preservation. When his
+birthday came round, which was some months after these events, Dot
+(assisted by Mamma and Aunt Penelope) had prepared for him a surprise
+that was more than equal to any of his own "splendid ideas." The whole
+force of the toy cupboard was assembled on the nursery table, to
+present Sam with a fine box of joiner's tools as a reward for his
+services, Papa kindly acting as spokesman on the occasion.
+
+And certain gaps in the china tea-set, some scars on the dolls' faces,
+and a good many new legs, both amongst the furniture and the animals,
+are now the only remaining traces of Sam's earthquake.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THREE CHRISTMAS TREES.
+
+This is a story of Three Christmas Trees. The first was a real one, but
+the child we are to speak of did not see it. He saw the other two, but
+they were not real; they only existed in his fancy. The plot of the
+story is very simple; and, as it has been described so early, it is
+easy for those who think it stupid to lay the book down in good time.
+
+Probably every child who reads this has seen one Christmas tree or
+more; but in the small town of a distant colony with which we have to
+do, this could not at one time have been said. Christmas-trees were
+then by no means so universal, even in England, as they now are, and in
+this little colonial town they were unknown. Unknown, that is, till the
+Governor's wife gave her great children's party. At which point we will
+begin the story.
+
+The Governor had given a great many parties in his time. He had
+entertained big wigs and little wigs, the passing military, and the
+local grandees. Everybody who had the remotest claim to attention had
+been attended to: the ladies had had their full share of balls and
+pleasure parties: only one class of the population had any complaint to
+prefer against his hospitality; but the class was a large one--it was
+the children. However, he, was a bachelor, and knew little or nothing
+about little boys and girls: let us pity rather than blame him. At last
+he took to himself a wife; and among the many advantages of this
+important step, was a due recognition of the claims of these young
+citizens. It was towards happy Christmas-tide that "the Governor's
+amiable and admired lady" (as she was styled in the local newspaper)
+sent out notes for her first children's party. At the top of the
+note-paper was a very red robin, who carried a blue Christmas greeting
+in his mouth, and at the bottom--written with A.D.C.'s best
+flourish--were the magic words, _A Christmas Tree_. In spite of the
+flourishes--partly perhaps because of them--the A.D.C.'s handwriting,
+though handsome, was rather illegible. But for all this, most of the
+children invited contrived to read these words, and those who could not
+do so were not slow to learn the news by hearsay. There was to be a
+Christmas Tree! It would be like a birthday party, with this above
+ordinary birthdays, that there were to be presents for every one. One
+of the children invited lived in a little white house, with a spruce
+fir-tree before the door. The spruce fir did this good service to the
+little house, that it helped people to find their way to it; and it
+was by no means easy for a stranger to find his way to any given house
+in this little town, especially if the house were small and white, and
+stood in one of the back streets. For most of the houses were small,
+and most of them were painted white, and back streets ran parallel with
+each other, and had no names, and were all so much alike that it was
+very confusing. For instance, if you had asked the way to Mr.
+So-and-So's, it is very probable that some friend would have directed
+you as follows: "Go straight forward and take the first turning to your
+left, and you will find that there are four streets, which run at right
+angles to the one you are in, and parallel with each other. Each of
+them has got a big pine in it--one of the old forest trees. Take the
+last street but one, and the fifth white house you come to is Mr.
+So-and-So's. He has green blinds and a coloured servant." You would not
+always have got such clear directions as these, but with them you would
+probably have found the house at last, partly by accident, partly by the
+blinds and coloured servant. Some of the neighbours affirmed that the
+little white house had a name; that all the houses and streets had names,
+only they were traditional and not recorded anywhere; that very few
+people knew them, and nobody made any use of them. The name of the little
+white house was said to be Trafalgar Villa, which seemed so inappropriate
+to the modest peaceful little home, that the man who lived in it tried to
+find out why it had been so called. He thought that his predecessor must
+have been in the navy, until he found that he had been the owner of what
+is called a "dry-goods store," which seems to mean a shop where things
+are sold which are not good to eat or drink--such as drapery. At last
+somebody said, that as there was a public-house called the "Duke of
+Wellington" at the corner of the street, there probably had been a nearer
+one called "The Nelson," which had been burnt down, and that the man who
+built "The Nelson" had built the house with the spruce fir before it,
+and that so the name had arisen. An explanation which was just so far
+probable, that public-houses and fires were of frequent occurrence in
+those parts.
+
+But this has nothing to do with the story. Only we must say, as we said
+before, and as we should have said had we been living there then, the
+child we speak of lived in the little white house with one spruce fir
+just in front of it.
+
+Of all the children who looked forward to the Christmas tree, he looked
+forward to it the most intensely. He was an imaginative child, of a
+simple, happy nature, easy to please. His father was an Englishman, and
+in the long winter evenings he would tell the child tales of the old
+country, to which his mother would listen also. Perhaps the parents
+enjoyed these stories the most. To the boy they were new, and
+consequently delightful, but to the parents they were old; and as
+regards some stories, that is better still.
+
+"What kind of a bird is this on my letter?" asked the boy on the day
+which brought the Governor's lady's note of invitation. "And oh! what
+is a Christmas tree?"
+
+"The bird is an English robin," said his father. "It is quite another
+bird to that which is called a robin here: it is smaller and rounder,
+and has a redder breast and bright dark eyes, and lives and sings at
+home through the winter. A Christmas tree is a fir-tree--just such a
+one as that outside the door--brought into the house and covered with
+lights and presents. Picture to yourself our fir-tree lighted up with
+tapers on all the branches, with dolls, and trumpets, and bon-bons, and
+drums, and toys of all kinds hanging from it like fir-cones, and on the
+tip-top shoot a figure of a Christmas Angel in white, with a star upon
+its head."
+
+"Fancy!" said the boy.
+
+And fancy he did. Every day he looked at the spruce fir, and tried to
+imagine it laden with presents, and brilliant with tapers, and thought
+how wonderful must be that "old country"--_Home_, as it was called, even
+by those who had never seen it--where the robins were so very red, and
+where at Christmas the fir-trees were hung with toys instead of cones.
+
+It was certainly a pity that, two days before the party, an original
+idea on the subject of snowmen struck one of the children who used to
+play together, with their sleds and snow shoes, in the back streets.
+The idea was this: That instead of having a commonplace snowman, whose
+legs were obliged to be mere stumps, for fear he should be top-heavy,
+and who could not walk, even with them; who, in fact, could do nothing
+but stand at the corner of the street, holding his impotent stick, and
+staring with his pebble eyes, till he was broken to pieces or
+ignominiously carried away by a thaw,--that, instead of this, they
+should have a real, live snowman, who should walk on competent legs, to
+the astonishment, and (happy thought!) perhaps to the alarm of the
+passers-by. This delightful novelty was to be accomplished by covering
+one of the boys of the party with snow till he looked as like a real
+snowman as circumstances would admit. At first everybody wanted to be
+the snowman, but, when it came to the point, it was found to be so much
+duller to stand still and be covered up than to run about and work,
+that no one was willing to act the part. At last it was undertaken by
+the little boy from the Fir House. He was somewhat small, but then he
+was so good-natured he would always do as he was asked. So he stood
+manfully still, with his arms folded over a walking-stick upon his
+breast, whilst the others heaped the snow upon him. The plan was not so
+successful as they had hoped. The snow would not stick anywhere except
+on his shoulders, and when it got into his neck he cried with the cold;
+but they were so anxious to carry out their project, that they begged
+him to bear it "just a little longer"; and the urchin who had devised
+the original idea wiped the child's eyes with his handkerchief, and
+(with that hopefulness which is so easy over other people's matters)
+"dared say that when all the snow was on, he wouldn't feel it."
+However, he did feel it, and that so severely that the children were
+obliged to give up the game, and, taking the stick out of his stiff
+little arms, to lead him home.
+
+It appears that it is with snowmen as with some other men in
+conspicuous positions. It is easier to find fault with them than to
+fill their place.
+
+The end of this was a feverish cold, and, when the day of the party
+came, the ex-snowman was still in bed. It is due to the other children
+to say that they felt the disappointment as keenly as he did, and that
+it greatly damped the pleasure of the party for them to think that they
+had prevented his sharing in the treat. The most penitent of all was
+the deviser of the original idea. He had generously offered to stay at
+home with the little patient, which was as generously refused; but the
+next evening he was allowed to come and sit on his bed, and describe it
+all for the amusement of his friend. He was a quaint boy, this urchin,
+with a face as broad as an American Indian's, eyes as bright as a
+squirrel's, and all the mischief in life lurking about him, till you
+could see roguishness in the very folds of his hooded Indian winter
+coat of blue and scarlet. In his hand he brought the sick child's
+present: a dray with two white horses, and little barrels that took off
+and on, and a driver, with wooden joints, a cloth coat, and everything,
+in fact, that was suitable to the driver of a brewer's dray, except
+that he had blue boots and earrings, and that his hair was painted in
+braids like a lady's, which is clearly the fault of the doll
+manufacturers, who will persist in making them all of the weaker sex.
+
+"And what was the Christmas tree like?" asked the invalid.
+
+"Exactly like the fir outside your door," was the reply. "Just about
+that size, and planted in a pot covered with red cloth. It was kept in
+another room till after tea, and then when the door was opened it was
+like a street fire in the town at night--such a blaze of light--candles
+everywhere! And on all the branches the most beautiful presents. I got
+a drum and a penwiper."
+
+"Was there an angel?" the child asked.
+
+"Oh, yes!" the boy answered. "It was on the tip-top branch, and it was
+given to me, and I brought it for you, if you would like it; for, you
+know, I am so very, very sorry I thought of a snowman and made you ill,
+and I do love you, and beg you to forgive me."
+
+And the roguish face stooped over the pillow to be kissed; and out of a
+pocket in the hooded coat came forth the Christmas Angel. In the face
+it bore a strong family likeness to the drayman, but its feet were
+hidden in folds of snowy muslin, and on its head glittered a tinsel
+star.
+
+"How lovely!" said the child. "Father told me about this. I like it
+best of all. And it is very kind of you, for it is not your fault that
+I caught cold. I should have liked it if we could have done it, but I
+think to enjoy being a snowman, one should be snow all through."
+
+They had tea together, and then the invalid was tucked up for the
+night. The dray was put away in the cupboard, but he took the angel to
+bed with him.
+
+And so ended the first of the Three Christmas Trees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Except for a warm glow from the wood fire in the stove, the room was
+dark; but about midnight it seemed to the child that a sudden blaze of
+light filled the chamber. At the same moment the window curtains were
+drawn aside, and he saw that the spruce fir had come close up to the
+panes and was peeping in. Ah! how beautiful it looked! It had become a
+Christmas tree. Lighted tapers shone from every familiar branch, toys
+of the most fascinating appearance hung like fruit, and on the tip-top
+shoot there stood the Christmas Angel. He tried to count the candles,
+but somehow it was impossible. When he looked at them they seemed to
+change places--to move--to become like the angel, and then to be
+candles again, whilst the flames nodded to each other and repeated the
+blue greeting of the robin, "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"
+Then he tried to distinguish the presents, but, beautiful as the toys
+looked, he could not exactly discover what any of them were, or choose
+which he would like best. Only the Angel he could see clearly--so
+clearly! It was more beautiful than the doll under his pillow; it had a
+lovely face like his own mother's, he thought, and on its head gleamed
+a star far brighter than tinsel. Its white robes waved with the flames
+of the tapers, and it stretched its arms towards him with a smile.
+
+"I am to go and choose my present," thought the child; and he called
+"Mother! Mother dear! please open the window."
+
+But his mother did not answer. So he thought he must get up himself,
+and with an effort he struggled out of bed.
+
+But when he was on his feet, everything seemed changed! Only the
+firelight shone upon the walls, and the curtains were once more firmly
+closed before the window. It had been a dream, but so vivid that in his
+feverish state he still thought it must be true, and dragged the
+curtains back to let in the glorious sight again. The firelight shone
+upon a thick coating of frost upon the panes, but no further could he
+see, so with all his strength he pushed the window open and leaned out
+into the night.
+
+The spruce fir stood in its old place; but it looked very beautiful in
+its Christmas dress. Beneath it lay a carpet of pure white. The snow
+was clustered in exquisite shapes upon its plumy branches; wrapping the
+tree top with its little cross shoots, as a white robe might wrap a
+figure with outstretched arms.
+
+There were no tapers to be seen, but northern lights shot up into the
+dark blue sky, and just over the fir-tree shone a bright, bright star.
+
+"Jupiter looks well to-night," said the old Professor in the town
+observatory, as he fixed his telescope; but to the child it seemed as
+the star of the Christmas Angel.
+
+His mother had really heard him call, and now came and put him back to
+bed again. And so ended the second of the Three Christmas Trees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was enough to have killed him, all his friends said; but it did not.
+He lived to be a man, and--what is rarer--to keep the faith, the
+simplicity, the tender-heartedness, the vivid fancy of his childhood.
+He lived to see many Christmas trees "at home," in that old country
+where the robins are redbreasts, and sing in winter. There a heart as
+good and gentle as his own became one with his; and once he brought his
+young wife across the sea to visit the place where he was born. They
+stood near the little white house, and he told her the story of the
+Christmas trees.
+
+"This was when I was a child," he added.
+
+"But that you are still," said she; and she plucked a bit of the
+fir-tree and kissed it, and carried it away.
+
+He lived to tell the story to his children, and even to his
+grandchildren; but he never was able to decide which of the two was
+the more beautiful--the Christmas Tree of his dream, or the Spruce Fir
+as it stood in the loveliness of that winter night.
+
+This is told, not that it has anything to do with any of the Three
+Christmas Trees, but to show that the story is a happy one, as is right
+and proper; that the hero lived, and married, and had children, and was
+as prosperous as good people, in books, should always be.
+
+Of course he died at last. The best and happiest of men must die; and
+it is only because some stories stop short in their history, that every
+hero is not duly buried before we lay down the book.
+
+When death came for our hero he was an old man. The beloved wife, some
+of his children, and many of his friends had died before him, and of
+those whom he had loved there were fewer to leave than to rejoin. He
+had had a short illness, with little pain, and was now lying on his
+deathbed in one of the big towns in the North of England. His youngest
+son, a clergy-man, was with him, and one or two others of his children,
+and by the fire sat the doctor.
+
+The doctor had been sitting by the patient, but now that he could do no
+more for him he had moved to the fire; and they had taken the ghastly,
+half-emptied medicine bottles from the table by the bedside, and had
+spread it with a fair linen cloth, and had set out the silver vessels
+of the Supper of the Lord. The old man had been "wandering" somewhat
+during the day. He had talked much of going home to the old country,
+and with the wide range of dying thoughts he had seemed to mingle
+memories of childhood with his hopes of Paradise. At intervals he was
+clear and collected--one of those moments had been chosen for his last
+sacrament--and he had fallen asleep with the blessing in his ears.
+
+He slept so long and so peacefully that the son almost began to hope
+that there might be a change, and looked towards the doctor, who still
+sat by the fire with his right leg crossed over his left. The doctor's
+eyes were also on the bed, but at that moment he drew out his watch and
+looked at it with an air of professional conviction, which said, "It's
+only a question of time." Then he crossed his left leg over his right,
+and turned to the fire again. Before the right leg should be tired, all
+would be over. The son saw it as clearly as if it had been spoken, and
+he too turned away and sighed.
+
+As they sat, the bells of a church in the town began to chime for
+midnight service, for it was Christmas Eve, but they did not wake the
+dying man. He slept on and on.
+
+The doctor dozed. The son read in the Prayer Book on the table, and one
+of his sisters read with him. Another, from grief and weariness, slept
+with her head upon his shoulder. Except for a warm glow from the fire,
+the room was dark. Suddenly the old man sat up in bed, and, in a strong
+voice, cried with inexpressible enthusiasm,
+
+"_How beautiful!_"
+
+The son held back his sisters, and asked quietly,
+
+"_What_, my dear Father?"
+
+"The Christmas Tree!" he said in a low, eager voice. "Draw back the
+curtains."
+
+They were drawn back; but nothing could be seen, and still the old man
+gazed as if in ecstasy.
+
+"Light!" he murmured. "The Angel! the Star!"
+
+Again there was silence; and then he stretched forth his hands, and
+cried passionately,
+
+"The Angel is beckoning to me! Mother! Mother dear! Please open the
+window."
+
+The sash was thrown open, and all eyes turned involuntarily where those
+of the dying man were gazing. There was no Christmas tree--no tree at
+all. But over the house-tops the morning star looked pure and pale in
+the dawn of Christmas Day. For the night was past, and above the
+distant hum of the streets the clear voices of some waits made the
+words of an old carol heard--words dearer for their association than
+their poetry:
+
+     "While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
+       All seated on the ground,
+     The Angel of the Lord came down,
+       And glory shone around."
+
+When the window was opened, the soul passed; and when they looked back
+to the bed the old man had lain down again, and, like a child, was
+smiling in his sleep--his last sleep.
+
+And this was the Third Christmas Tree.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+AN IDYLL OF THE WOOD.
+
+
+"Tell us a story," said the children, "a sad one, if you please, and a
+little true. But, above all, let it end badly, for we are tired of
+people who live happily ever after."
+
+"I heard one lately," said the old man who lived in the wood; "it is
+founded on fact, and is a sad one also; but whether it ends badly or no
+I cannot pretend to say. That is a matter of taste: what is a bad
+ending?"
+
+"A story ends badly," said the children with authority, "when people
+die, and nobody marries anybody else, especially if it is a prince and
+princess."
+
+"A most lucid explanation," said the old man. "I think my story will
+do, for the principal character dies, and there is no wedding."
+
+"Tell it, tell it!" cried his hearers, "and tell us also where you got
+it from."
+
+"Who knows the riches of a wood in summer?" said the old man. "In
+summer, do I say? In spring, in autumn, or in winter either. Who knows
+them? You, my children? Well, well. Better than some of your elders,
+perchance. You know the wood where I live; the hollow tree that will
+hold five children, and Queen Mab knows how many fairies. (What a
+castle it makes! And if it had but another floor put into it, with a
+sloping ladder--like one of the round towers of Ireland--what a house
+for children to live in! With no room for lesson-books, grown-up
+people, or beds!)
+
+"You know the way to the hazel copse, and the place where the wild
+strawberries grow. You know where the wren sits on her eggs, and, like
+good children, pass by with soft steps and hushed voices, that you may
+not disturb that little mother. You know (for I have shown you) where
+the rare fern grows--a habitat happily yet unnoted in scientific pages.
+_We_ never add its lovely fronds to our nosegays, and if we move a
+root it is but to plant it in another part of the wood, with as much
+mystery and circumspection as if we were performing some solemn
+druidical rite. It is to us as a king in hiding, and the places of its
+abode we keep faithfully secret. It will be thus held sacred by us
+until, with all the seed its untouched fronds have scattered, and all
+the offshoots we have propagated, it shall have become as plentiful as
+Heaven intends all beautiful things to be. Every one is not so
+scrupulous. There are certain ladies and gentlemen who picnic near my
+cottage in the hot weather, and who tell each other that they love a
+wood. Most of these good people have nevertheless neither eyes nor ears
+for what goes on around them, except that they hear each other, and see
+the cold collation. They will picnic there summer after summer, and not
+know whether they sit under oaks or ashes, beeches or elms. All birds
+sing for them the same song. Tell _them_ that such a plant is rare
+in the neighbourhood, that there are but few specimens of it, and it
+will not long be their fault if there are any. Does any one direct them
+to it, they tear it ruthlessly up and carry it away. If by any chance a
+root is left, it is left so dragged and pulled and denuded of earth,
+that there is small chance that it will survive. Probably, also, the
+ravished clump dies in the garden or pot to which it is transplanted,
+either from neglect, or from ignorance of the conditions essential to
+its life; and the rare plant becomes yet rarer. Oh! without doubt they
+love a wood. It gives more shade than the largest umbrella, and is
+cheaper for summer entertainment than a tent: there you get canopy and
+carpet, fuel and water, shade and song, and beauty--all gratis; and
+these are not small matters when one has invited a large party of one's
+acquaintance. There are insects, it is true, which somewhat disturb our
+friends; and as they do not know which sting, and which are harmless,
+they kill all that come within their reach, as a safe general
+principle. The town boys, too! They know the wood--that is to say, they
+know where the wild fruits grow, and how to chase the squirrel, and rob
+the birds' nests, and snare the birds. Well, well, my children; to know
+and love a wood truly, it may be that one must live in it as I have
+done; and then a lifetime will scarcely reveal all its beauties, or
+exhaust its lessons. But even then, one must have eyes that see, and
+ears that hear, or one misses a good deal. It was in the wood that I
+heard this story that I shall tell you."
+
+"How did you hear it?" asked the children.
+
+"A thrush sang it to me one night."
+
+"One night?" said the children. "Then you mean a nightingale."
+
+"I mean a thrush," said the old man. "Do I not know the note of one
+bird from another? I tell you that pine-tree by my cottage has a legend
+of its own, and the topmost branch is haunted. Must all legends be
+about the loves and sorrows of our self-satisfied race alone?"
+
+"But did you really and truly hear it?" they asked. "I heard it," said
+the old man. "But, as I tell you, one hears and one hears. I don't say
+that everybody would have heard it, merely by sleeping in my chamber;
+but, for the benefit of the least imaginative, I will assure you that
+it is founded on fact."
+
+"Begin! begin!" shouted the children.
+
+"Once upon a time," said the old man, "there was a young thrush, who
+was born in that beautiful dingle where we last planted the ---- fern.
+His home-nest was close to the ground, but the lower one is, the less
+fear of falling; and in woods, the elevation at which you sleep is a
+matter of taste, and not of expense or gentility. He awoke to life when
+the wood was dressed in the pale fresh green of early summer; and
+believing, like other folk, that his own home was at least the
+principal part of the world, earth seemed to him so happy and so
+beautiful an abode, that his heart felt ready to burst with joy. The
+ecstasy was almost pain, till wings and a voice came to him. Then, one
+day, when, after a grey morning, the sun came out at noon, drawing the
+scent from the old pine that looks in at my bedroom window, his joy
+burst forth, after long silence, into song, and flying upwards, he sat
+on the topmost branch of the pine, and sang as loud as he could sing to
+the sun and the blue sky.
+
+"'Joy! joy!' he sang. 'Fresh water and green woods, ambrosial sunshine
+and sunflecked shade, chattering brooks and rustling leaves, glade, and
+sward, and dell. Lichens and cool mosses, feathered ferns and flowers.
+Green leaves! Green leaves! Summer! summer! summer!'
+
+"It was monotonous, but every word came from the singer's heart, which
+is not always the case. Thenceforward, though he slept near the ground,
+he went up every day to this pine, as to some sacred high place, and
+sang the same song, of which neither he nor I were ever weary.
+
+"Let one be ever so inoffensive, however, one is not long left in peace
+in this world, even in a wood. The thrush sang too loudly of his simple
+happiness, and some boys from the town heard him and snared him, and
+took him away in a dirty cloth cap, where he was nearly smothered. The
+world is certainly not exclusively composed of sunshine, and green
+woods, and odorous pines. He became almost senseless during the hot
+dusty walk that led to the town. It was a seaport town, about two miles
+from the wood, a town of narrow, steep streets, picturesque old houses,
+and odours compounded of tar, dead fish, and many other scents less
+agreeable than forest perfumes. The thrush was put into a small
+wicker-cage in an upper room, in one of the narrowest and steepest of
+the streets. "'I shall die to-night,' he piped. But he did not. He
+lived that night, and for several nights and days following. The boys
+took small care of him, however. He was often left without food,
+without water, and always with too little air. Two or three times they
+tried to sell him, but he was not bought, for no one could hear him
+sing. One day he was hung outside the window, and partly owing to the
+sun and fresh air, and partly because a woman was singing in the
+street, he began to carol his old song.
+
+"The woman was a street singer. She was even paler, thinner, and more
+destitute-looking than such women usually are. In some past time there
+had been beauty and feeling in her face, but the traces of both were
+well-nigh gone. An indifference almost amounting to vacancy was there
+now, and, except that she sang, you might almost have fancied her a
+corpse. In her voice, also, there had once been beauty and feeling, and
+here again the traces were small indeed. From time to time, she was
+stopped by fits of coughing, when an ill-favoured hunchback, who
+accompanied her on a tambourine, swore and scowled at her. She sang a
+song of sentiment, with a refrain about
+
+     'Love and truth,
+     And joys of youth--'
+
+on which the melody dwelt and quavered as if in mockery. As she sang, a
+sailor came down the street. His collar was very large, his trousers
+were very wide, his hat hung on the back of his head more as an
+ornament than for shelter; and he had one of the roughest faces and the
+gentlest hearts that ever went together since Beauty was entertained by
+the Beast. His hands were in his pockets, where he could feel one
+shilling and a penny, all the spare cash that remained to him after a
+friendly stroll through the town. When he saw the street singer, he
+stopped, pulled off his hat, and scratched his head, as was his custom
+when he was puzzled or interested.
+
+"'It's no good keeping an odd penny,' he said to himself; 'poor thing,
+she looks bad enough!' And, bringing the penny to the surface out of
+the depths of his pocket, he gave it to the woman. The hunchback came
+forward to take it, but the sailor passed him with a shove of his
+elbow, and gave it to the singer, who handed it over to her companion
+without moving a feature, and went on with her song.
+
+"'I'd like to break every bone in your ugly body,' muttered the sailor,
+with a glance at the hunchback, who scowled in return.
+
+"'I shall die of this close street, and of all I have suffered,'
+thought the thrush.
+
+"'Green leaves! green leaves!' he sang, for it was the only song he
+knew.
+
+"'My voice is gone,' thought the hunchback's companion. 'He'll beat me
+again to-night; but it can't last long:
+
+     "Love and truth,
+     And joys of youth"'--
+
+she sang, for that was the song she had learned; and it was not her
+fault that it was inappropriate.
+
+"But the ballad-singer's captivity was nearly at an end. When the
+hunchback left her that evening to spend the sailor's penny with the
+few others which she had earned, he swore that when he came back he
+would make her sing louder than she had done all day. Her face showed
+no emotion, less than it did when he saw it hours after, when beauty
+and feeling seemed to have returned to it in the peace of death, when
+he came back and found the cage empty, and that the long-prisoned
+spirit had flown away to seek the face of love and truth indeed.
+
+"But how about the thrush?
+
+"The sailor had scarcely swallowed the wrath which the hunchback had
+stirred in him, when his ear was caught by the song of the thrush above
+him.
+
+"'You sing uncommon well, pretty one,' he said, stopping and putting
+his hat even farther back than usual to look up. He was one of those
+good people who stop a dozen times in one street, and look at
+everything as they go along; whereby you may see three times as much of
+life as other folk, but it is a terrible temptation to spend money. It
+was so in this instance. The sailor looked till his kindly eye
+perceived that the bird was ill-cared for.
+
+"'It should have a bit of sod, it _should_,' he said emphatically,
+taking his hat off, and scratching his head again; 'and there's not a
+crumb of food on board. Maybe, they don't understand the ways of birds
+here. It would be a good turn to mention it.'
+
+"With this charitable intention he entered the house, and when he left
+it, his pocket was empty, and the thrush was carried tenderly in his
+handkerchief.
+
+"'The canary died last voyage,' he muttered apologetically to himself,
+'and the money always does go somehow or other.'
+
+"The sailor's hands were about three times as large and coarse as those
+of the boy who had carried the thrush before, but they seemed to him
+three times more light and tender--they were handy and kind, and this
+goes farther than taper fingers.
+
+"The thrush's new home was not in the narrow streets. It was in a small
+cottage in a small garden at the back of the town. The canary's old
+cage was comparatively roomy, and food, water, and fresh turf were
+regularly supplied to him. He could see green leaves too. There was an
+apple-tree in the garden, and two geraniums, a fuchsia, and a tea-rose
+in the window. Near the tea-rose an old woman sat in the sunshine. She
+was the sailor's mother, and looked very like a tidily-kept
+window-plant herself. She had a little money of her own, which gave her
+a certain dignity, and her son was very good to her; and so she dwelt
+in considerable comfort, dividing her time chiefly between reading in
+the big Bible, knitting socks for Jack, and raising cuttings in bottles
+of water. She had heard of hothouses and forcing-frames, but she did
+not think much of them. She believed a bottle of water to be the most
+natural, because it was the oldest method she knew of, and she thought
+no good came of new-fangled ways, and trying to outdo Nature.
+
+"'Slow and sure is best,' she said, and stuck to her own system.
+
+"'What's that, my dear?' she asked, when the sailor came in and held up
+the handkerchief. He told her.
+
+"'You're always a-laying out your money on something or other,' said
+the old lady, who took the privilege of her years to be a little testy.
+'What did you give for _that_?'
+
+"'A shilling, ma'am.'
+
+"'Tst! tst! tst!' said the old lady, disapprovingly.
+
+"'Now, Mother, don't shake that cap of yours off your head,' said the
+sailor. 'What's a shilling? If I hadn't spent it, I should have changed
+it; and once change a shilling, and it all dribbles away in coppers,
+and you get nothing for it. But spend it in the lump, and you get
+something you want. That's what I say.'
+
+"'_I_ want no more pets,' said the old lady, stiffly.
+
+"'Well, you won't be troubled with this one long,' said her son; 'it'll
+go with me, and that's soon enough.'
+
+"Any allusion to his departure always melted the old lady, as Jack well
+knew. She became tearful, and begged him to leave the thrush with her.
+
+"'You know, my dear, I've always looked to your live things as if they
+were Christians; and loved them too (unless it was that monkey that I
+never _could_ do with!). Leave it with me, my dear. I'd never bother
+myself with a bird on board ship, if I was you.'
+
+"'That's because you've got a handsome son of your own, old lady,'
+chuckled the sailor; 'I've neither chick nor child, ma'am, remember,
+and a man must have something to look to. The bird'll go with me.'
+
+"And so it came to pass that just when the thrush was becoming
+domesticated, and almost happy at the cottage, one morning the sailor
+brought him fresh turf and groundsel, besides his meal-cake, and took
+the cage down. And the old woman kissed the wires, and bade the bird
+good-bye, and blessed her son, and prayed Heaven to bring him safe home
+again; and they went their way.
+
+"The forecastle of a steam-ship (even of a big one) is a poor exchange
+for a snug cottage to any one but a sailor. To Jack, the ship was home.
+_He_ had never lived in a wood, and carolled in tree-tops. He preferred
+blue to green, and pine masts to pine trees; and he smoked his pipe
+very comfortably in the forecastle, whilst the ship rolled to and fro,
+and swung the bird's cage above his head. To the thrush it was only an
+imprisonment that grew worse as time went on. Each succeeding day made
+him pine more bitterly for his native woods--for fresh air and green
+leaves, and the rest and quiet, and sweet perfumes, and pleasant sounds
+of country life. His turf dried up, his groundsel withered, and no more
+could be got. He longed even to be back with the old woman--to see the
+apple-tree, and the window-plants, and be still. The shudder of the
+screw, the blasts of hot air from the engine and cook's galley, the
+ceaseless jangling, clanging, pumping noises, and all the indescribable
+smells which haunt a steam-ship, became more wearisome day by day. Even
+when the cage was hung outside, the, sea breeze seemed to mock him with
+its freshness. The rich blue of the waters gave him no pleasure, his
+eyes failed with looking for green, the bitter, salt spray vexed him,
+and the wind often chilled him to the bone, whilst the sun shone, and
+icebergs gleamed upon the horizon.
+
+"The sailor had been so kind a master, that the thrush had become
+deeply attached to him, as birds will; and while at the cottage he had
+scarcely fretted after his beloved wood. But with every hour of the
+voyage, home-sickness came more strongly upon him, and his heart went
+back to the nest, and the pine-top, and the old home. When one sleeps
+soundly, it is seldom that one remembers one's dreams; but when one is
+apt to be roused by an unexpected lurch of the ship, by the moan of a
+fog-whistle, or the scream of an engine, one becomes a light sleeper,
+and the visions of the night have a strange reality, and are easily
+recalled. And now the thrush always dreamt of home.
+
+"One day he was hung outside. It was not a very fine day, but he looked
+drooping, and the pitying sailor brought him out, to get some air. His
+heart was sore with home-sickness, and he watched the sea-birds
+skimming up and down with envious eyes. It seemed all very well for
+poor men, who hadn't so much as a wing to carry them over the water, to
+build lumbering sea-nests, with bodies to float in the water like fish,
+and wings of canvas to carry them along, and to help it out with noisy
+steam-engines--and to endure it all. But for him, who could fly over a
+hundred tree-tops before a man could climb to one, it was hard to swing
+outside a ship, and to watch other birds use their wings, when his,
+which quivered to fly homewards, could only flutter against the bars.
+As he thought, a roll of the ship threw him forward, the wind shook the
+wires of the cage, and loosened the fastening; and, when the vessel
+righted, the cage-door swung slowly open.
+
+"At this moment, a ray of sunshine streaked the deep blue water, and a
+gleaming sea bird, which had been sitting like a tuft of foam upon a
+wave, rose with outstretched pinions, and soared away. It was too much.
+With one shrill pipe of hope, the thrush fluttered from his cage,
+spread his wings, and followed him.
+
+"When the sailor found that the wind was getting up, he came to take
+the cage down, and then his grief was sore indeed.
+
+"'The canary died last voyage,' he said, sadly. 'The cage was bought on
+a Friday, and I knew ill luck would come of it. I said so to Mother;
+but the old lady says there's no such thing as luck, and she's
+Bible-learned, if ever a woman was. "That's very true," says I, "but
+if I'd the money for another cage, I wouldn't use this;" and I never
+will again. Poor, bird! it was a sweet singer.' And he turned his face
+aside.
+
+"'It may have the sense to come back,' said one of the crew. The sailor
+scratched his head, and shook it sadly.
+
+"'Noah's bird came back to him, when she found no rest,' he said, 'but
+I don't think mine will, Tom.'
+
+"He was right. The thrush returned no more. He did not know how wide
+was the difference between his own strength and that of the bird he
+followed. The sea-fowl cut the air with wings of tenfold power: he
+swooped up and down, he stooped to fish, he rested on the ridges of the
+dancing waves, and then, with one steady flight, he disappeared, and
+the thrush was left alone. Other birds passed him, and flew about him,
+and fished, and rocked upon the waters near him, but he held steadily
+on. Ships passed him also, but too far away for him to rest upon;
+whales spouted in the distance, and strange fowl screamed; but not a
+familiar object broke the expanse of the cold sea. He did not know what
+course he was taking. He hoped against hope that he was going home.
+Although he was more faint and weary than he had ever yet been, he felt
+no pain. The intensity of his hope to reach the old wood made
+everything seem light; even at the last, when his wings were almost
+powerless, he believed that they would bear him home, and was happy.
+Already he seemed to rest upon the trees, the waters sounded in his
+ears like the rustling of leaves, and the familiar scent of the
+pine-tree seemed to him to come upon the breeze.
+
+"In this he was not wrong. A country of pine-woods was near; and land
+was in sight, though too far away for him to reach it now. Not home,
+but yet a land of wondrous summer beauty; of woods, and flowers, and
+sun-flecked leaves--of sunshine more glowing than he had ever known--of
+larger ferns, and deeper mosses, and clearer skies--a land, of balmy
+summer nights, where the stars shine brighter than with us, and where
+fireflies appear and vanish, like stars of a lower firmament, amid the
+trees. As the sun broke out, the scent of pines came strong upon the
+land breeze. A strange land, but the thrush thought it was his own.
+
+"'I smell woods,' he chirped faintly; 'I see the sun. This is home!'
+
+"All round him, the noisy crests of the fresh waves seemed to carol the
+song he could no longer sing--'Home, home! fresh water and green woods,
+ambrosial sunshine and sun-flecked shade, chattering brooks and
+rustling leaves, glade and sward and dell, lichens and cool mosses,
+feathered ferns and flowers. Green leaves! green leaves! Summer!
+summer! summer!'
+
+"The slackened wings dropped, the dying eyes looked landward, and then
+closed. But even as he fell, he believed himself sinking to rest on
+Mother Earth's kindly bosom, and he did not know it, when the cold
+waves buried him at sea."
+
+"Oh, then, he _did_ die!" cried the children, who, though they were tired
+of stories that end happily, yet, when they heard it, liked a sad ending
+no better than other children do (in which, by the bye, we hold them to
+be in the right, and can hardly forgive ourselves for chronicling this
+"ower true tale").
+
+"Yes," said the old man, "he died; but it is said that the sweet
+dingle which was his home--forsaken by the nightingale--is regarded by
+birds as men regard a haunted house; for that at still summer midnight,
+when other thrushes sleep, a shadowy form, more like a skeleton leaf
+than a living bird, swings upon the tall tree-tops where he sat of old,
+and, rapt in a happy ecstasy, sings a song more sweet and joyous than
+thrush ever sang by day."
+
+"Have you heard it?" asked the children.
+
+The old man nodded. But not another word would he say. The children,
+however, forthwith began to lay plans for getting into the wood some
+mid-summer night, to test with their own ears the truth of his story,
+and to hear the spectre thrush's song. Whether the authorities
+permitted the expedition, and if not, whether the young people baffled
+their vigilance--whether they heard the song, and if so, whether they
+understood it--we are not empowered to tell here.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+CHRISTMAS CRACKERS.
+
+A FANTASIA.
+
+
+It was Christmas-eve in an old-fashioned country-house, where Christmas
+was being kept with old-fashioned form and custom. It was getting late.
+The candles swaggered in their sockets, and the yule log glowed
+steadily like a red-hot coal.
+
+"The fire has reached his heart," said the tutor: "he is warm all
+through. How red he is! He shines with heat and hospitality like some
+warm-hearted old gentleman when a convivial evening is pretty far
+advanced. To-morrow he will be as cold and grey as the morning after a
+festival, when the glasses are being washed up, and the host is
+calculating his expenses. Yes! you know it is so;" and the tutor nodded
+to the yule log as he spoke; and the log flared and crackled in return,
+till the tutor's face shone like his own. He had no other means of
+reply.
+
+The tutor was grotesque-looking at any time. He was lank and meagre,
+with a long body and limbs, and high shoulders. His face was
+smooth-shaven, and his skin like old parchment stretched over high
+cheek-bones and lantern jaws; but in their hollow sockets his eyes
+gleamed with the changeful lustre of two precious gems. In the ruddy
+firelight they were like rubies, and when he drew back into the shade
+they glared green like the eyes of a cat. It must not be inferred from
+the tutor's presence this evening that there were no Christmas holidays
+in this house. They had begun some days before; and if the tutor had
+had a home to go to, it is to be presumed that he would have gone.
+
+As the candles got lower, and the log flared less often, weird lights
+and shades, such as haunt the twilight, crept about the room. The
+tutor's shadow, longer, lanker, and more grotesque than himself, mopped
+and mowed upon the wall beside him. The snapdragon burnt blue, and as
+the raisin-hunters stirred the flaming spirit, the ghastly light made
+the tutor look so hideous that the widow's little boy was on the eve of
+howling, and spilled the raisins he had just secured. (He did not like
+putting his fingers into the flames, but he hovered near the more
+adventurous school-boys and collected the raisins that were scattered
+on the table by the hasty _grabs_ of braver hands.)
+
+The widow was a relative of the house. She had married a Mr. Jones, and
+having been during his life his devoted slave, had on his death
+transferred her allegiance to his son. The late Mr. Jones was a small
+man with a strong temper, a large appetite, and a taste for
+drawing-room theatricals. So Mrs. Jones had called her son Macready;
+"for," she said, "his poor papa would have made a fortune on the stage,
+and I wish to commemorate his talents. Besides, Macready sounds better
+with Jones than a commoner Christian name would do."
+
+But his cousins called him MacGreedy.
+
+"The apples of the enchanted garden were guarded by dragons. Many
+knights went after them. One wished for the apples, but he did not like
+to fight the dragons."
+
+It was the tutor who spoke from the dark corner by the fire-place. His
+eyes shone like a cat's, and MacGreedy felt like a half-scared mouse,
+and made up his mind to cry. He put his right fist into one eye, and
+had just taken it out, and was about to put his left fist into the
+other, when he saw that the tutor was no longer looking at him. So he
+made up his mind to go on with the raisins, for one can have a peevish
+cry at any time, but plums are not scattered broadcast every day.
+Several times he had tried to pocket them, but just at the moment the
+tutor was sure to look at him, and in his fright he dropped the
+raisins, and never could find them again. So this time he resolved to
+eat them then and there. He had just put one into his mouth when the
+tutor leaned forward, and his eyes, glowing in the firelight, met
+MacGreedy's, who had not even the presence of mind to shut his mouth,
+but remained spellbound, with a raisin in his cheek.
+
+Flicker, flack! The school-boys stirred up snapdragon again, and with
+the blue light upon his features the tutor made so horrible a grimace
+that MacGreedy swallowed the raisin with a start. He had bolted it
+whole, and it might have been a bread pill for any enjoyment he had of
+the flavour. But the tutor laughed aloud. He certainly was an alarming
+object, pulling those grimaces in the blue brandy glare; and
+unpleasantly like a picture of Bogy himself with horns and a tail, in a
+juvenile volume upstairs. True, there were no horns to speak of among
+the tutor's grizzled curls, and his coat seemed to fit as well as most
+people's on his long back, so that unless he put his tail in his
+pocket, it is difficult to see how he could have had one. But then (as
+Miss Letitia said) "With dress one can do anything and hide anything,"
+and on dress Miss Letitia's opinion was final.
+
+Miss Letitia was a cousin. She was dark, high-coloured, glossy-haired,
+stout, and showy. She was as neat as a new pin, and had a will of her
+own. Her hair was firmly fixed by bandoline, her garibaldis by an
+arrangement which failed when applied to those of the widow, and her
+opinions by the simple process of looking at everything from one point
+of view. Her _forte_ was dress and general ornamentation; not that
+Miss Letitia was extravagant--far from it. If one may use the
+expression, she utilized for ornament a hundred bits and scraps that
+most people would have wasted. But, like other artists, she saw
+everything through the medium of her own art. She looked at birds with
+an eye to hats, and at flowers with reference to evening parties. At
+picture exhibitions and concerts she carried away jacket patterns and
+bonnets in her head, as other people make mental notes of an aerial
+effect, or a bit of fine instrumentation. An enthusiastic
+horticulturist once sent Miss Letitia a cut specimen of a new flower.
+It was a lovely spray from a lately-imported shrub. A botanist would
+have pressed it--an artist must have taken its portrait--a poet might
+have written a sonnet in praise of its beauty. Miss Letitia twisted a
+piece of wire round its stem, and fastened it on to her black lace
+bonnet. It came on the day of a review, when Miss Letitia had to appear
+in a carriage, and it was quite a success. As she said to the widow,
+"It was so natural that no one could doubt its being Parisian."
+
+"What a strange fellow that tutor is!" said the visitor. He spoke to
+the daughter of the house, a girl with a face like a summer's day, and
+hair like a ripe corn-field rippling in the sun. He was a fine young
+man, and had a youth's taste for the sports and amusements of his age.
+But lately he had changed. He seemed to himself to be living in a
+higher, nobler atmosphere than hitherto. He had discovered that he was
+poetical--he might prove to be a genius. He certainly was eloquent, he
+could talk for hours, and did so--to the young lady with the sunshiny
+face. They spoke on the highest subjects, and what a listener she was!
+So intelligent and appreciative, and with such an exquisite _pose_
+of the head--it must inspire a block of wood merely to see such a
+creature in a listening attitude. As to our young friend, he poured
+forth volumes; he was really clever, and for her he became eloquent.
+To-night he spoke of Christmas, of time-honoured custom and old
+association; and what he said would have made a Christmas article for a
+magazine of the first class. He poured scorn on the cold nature that
+could not, and the affectation that would not, appreciate the domestic
+festivities of this sacred season. What, he asked, could be more
+delightful, more perfect than such a gathering as this, of the
+family circle round the Christmas hearth? He spoke with feeling, and it
+may be said with disinterested feeling, for he had not joined his
+family circle himself this Christmas, and there was a vacant place by
+the hearth of his own home.
+
+"He is strange," said the young lady (she spoke of the tutor in answer
+to the above remark); "but I am very fond of him. He has been with us
+so long he is like one of the family; though we know as little of his
+history as we did on the day he came."
+
+"He looks clever," said the visitor. (Perhaps that is the least one can
+say for a fellow-creature who shows a great deal of bare skull, and is
+not otherwise good-looking.)
+
+"He is clever," she answered, "wonderfully clever; so clever and so odd
+that sometimes I fancy he is hardly 'canny.' There is something almost
+supernatural about his acuteness and his ingenuity, but they are so
+kindly used; I wonder he has not brought out any playthings for us
+to-night."
+
+"Playthings?" inquired the young man.
+
+"Yes; on birthdays or festivals like this he generally brings something
+out of those huge pockets of his. He has been all over the world, and
+he produces Indian puzzles, Japanese flower-buds that bloom in hot
+water, and German toys with complicated machinery, which I suspect him
+of manufacturing himself. I call him Godpapa Grosselmayer, after that
+delightful old fellow in Hoffman's tale of the Nut Cracker."
+
+"What's that about crackers?" inquired the tutor, sharply, his eyes
+changing colour like a fire opal.
+
+"I am talking of _Nussnacker und Mausekoenig_," laughed the young lady.
+"Crackers do not belong to Christmas; fireworks come on the 5th of
+November."
+
+"Tut, tut!" said the tutor; "I always tell your ladyship that you are
+still a tom-boy at heart, as when I first came, and you climbed trees
+and pelted myself and my young students with horse-chestnuts. You think
+of crackers to explode at the heels of timorous old gentlemen in a
+November fog; but I mean bonbon crackers, coloured crackers, dainty
+crackers--crackers for young people with mottoes of sentiment" (here
+the tutor shrugged his high shoulders an inch or two higher, and
+turned the palms of his hands outwards with a glance indescribably
+comical)--"crackers with paper prodigies, crackers with
+sweetmeats--_such_ sweetmeats!" He smacked his lips with a grotesque
+contortion, and looked at Master McGreedy, who choked himself with
+his last raisin, and forthwith burst into tears.
+
+The widow tried in vain to soothe him with caresses, but he only
+stamped and howled the more. But Miss Letitia gave him some smart
+smacks on the shoulders to cure his choking fit, and as she kept up the
+treatment with vigour, the young gentleman was obliged to stop and
+assure her that the raisin had "gone the right way" at last. "If he
+were my child," Miss Letitia had been known to observe, with that
+confidence which characterizes the theories of those who are not
+parents, "I would, &c., &c., &c.;" in fact, Miss Letitia thought she
+would have made a very different boy of him--as, indeed, I believe she
+would.
+
+"Are crackers all that you have for us, sir?" asked one of the two
+school-boys, as they hung over the tutor's chair. They were twins,
+grand boys, with broad, good-humoured faces, and curly wigs, as like as
+two puppy dogs of the same breed. They were only known apart by their
+intimate friends, and were always together, romping, laughing,
+snarling, squabbling, huffing and helping each other against the world.
+Each of them owned a wiry terrier, and in their relations to each other
+the two dogs (who were marvellously alike) closely followed the example
+of their masters.
+
+"Do you not care for crackers, Jim?" asked the tutor.
+
+"Not much, sir. They do for girls: but, as you know, I care for nothing
+but military matters. Do you remember that beautiful toy of yours--'The
+Besieged City'? Ah! I liked that. Look out, Tom! you're shoving my arm.
+Can't you stand straight, man?'
+
+"R-r-r-r--r-r, snap!"
+
+Tom's dog was resenting contact with Jim's dog on the hearthrug. There
+was a hustle among the four, and then they subsided.
+
+"The Besieged City was all very well for you, Jim," said Tom, who meant
+to be a sailor; "but please to remember that it admitted of no attack
+from the sea; and what was there for me to do? Ah, sir! you are so
+clever, I often think you could help me to make a swing with ladders
+instead of single ropes, so that I could run up and down the rigging
+whilst it was in full go."
+
+"That would be something like your fir-tree prank, Tom," said his
+sister. "Can you believe," she added, turning to the visitor, "that Tom
+lopped the branches of a tall young fir-tree all the way up, leaving
+little bits for foothold, and then climbed up it one day in an awful
+storm of wind, and clung on at the top, rocking backwards and forwards?
+And when Papa sent word for him to come down, he said parental
+authority was superseded at sea by the rules of the service. It was a
+dreadful storm, and the tree snapped very soon after he got safe to the
+ground."
+
+"Storm!" sneered Tom, "a capful of wind. Well, it did blow half a gale
+at the last. But oh! it was glorious!"
+
+"Let us see what we can make of the crackers," said the tutor--and he
+pulled some out of his pocket. They were put in a dish upon the table,
+for the company to choose from; and the terriers jumped and snapped,
+and tumbled over each other, for they thought that the plate contained
+eatables. Animated by the same idea, but with quieter steps, Master
+MacGreedy also approached the table.
+
+"The dogs are noisy," said the tutor, "too noisy. We must have
+quiet--peace and quiet." His lean hand was once more in his pocket, and
+he pulled out a box, from which he took some powder, which he scattered
+on the burning log. A slight smoke now rose from the hot embers, and
+floated into the room. Was the powder one of those strange compounds
+that act upon the brain? Was it a magician's powder? Who knows? With it
+came a sweet, subtle fragrance. It was strange--every one fancied he
+had smelt it before, and all were absorbed in wondering what it was,
+and where they had met with it. Even the dogs sat on their haunches
+with their noses up, sniffing in a speculative manner.
+
+"It's not lavender," said the grandmother, slowly, "and it's not
+rosemary. There is a something of tansy in it (and a very fine tonic
+flavour too, my dears, though it's _not_ in fashion now). Depend upon it,
+it's a potpourri, and from an excellent receipt, sir"--and the old lady
+bowed courteously towards the tutor. "My mother made the best potpourri
+in the county, and it was very much like this. Not quite,
+perhaps, but much the same, much the same."
+
+The grandmother was a fine old gentlewoman "of the old school," as the
+phrase is. She was very stately and gracious in her manners, daintily
+neat in her person, and much attached to the old parson of the parish,
+who now sat near her chair. All her life she had been very proud of her
+fine stock of fair linen, both household and personal; and for many
+years past had kept her own graveclothes ready in a drawer. They were
+bleached as white as snow, and lay amongst bags of dried lavender and
+potpourri. Many times had it seemed likely that they would be needed,
+for the old lady had had severe illnesses of late, when the good parson
+sat by her bedside, and read to her of the coming of the Bridegroom,
+and of that "fine linen clean and white," which is "the righteousness
+of the saints." It was of that drawer, with its lavender and potpourri
+bags, that the scented smoke had reminded her.
+
+"It has rather an overpowering odour," said the old parson; "it is
+suggestive of incense. I am sure I once smelt something like it in the
+Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. It is very delicious."
+
+The parson's long residence in his parish had been marked by one great
+holiday. With the savings of many years he had performed a pilgrimage
+to the Holy Land; and it was rather a joke against him that he
+illustrated a large variety of subjects by reference to his favourite
+topic, the holiday of his life.
+
+"It smells of gunpowder," said Jim, decidedly, "and something else. I
+can't tell what."
+
+"Something one smells in a seaport town," said Tom.
+
+"Can't be very delicious then," Jim retorted.
+
+"It's not _quite_ the same," piped the widow; "but it reminds me very
+much of an old bottle of attar of roses that was given to me when I
+was at school, with a copy of verses, by a young gentleman who was
+brother to one of the pupils. I remember Mr. Jones was quite annoyed
+when he found it in an old box, where I am sure I had not touched it
+for ten years or more; and I never spoke to him but once, on
+Examination Day (the young gentleman, I mean). And its like--yes it's
+certainly like a hair-wash Mr. Jones used to use. I've forgotten what
+it was called, but I know it cost fifteen shillings a bottle; and
+Macready threw one over a few weeks before his dear papa's death, and
+annoyed him extremely."
+
+Whilst the company were thus engaged, Master MacGreedy took advantage
+of the general abstraction to secure half-a-dozen crackers to his own
+share; he retired to a corner with them, where he meant to pick them
+quietly to pieces by himself. He wanted the gay paper, and the motto,
+and the sweetmeats; but he did not like the report of the cracker. And
+then what he did want, he wanted all to himself.
+
+"Give us a cracker," said Master Jim, dreamily.
+
+The dogs, after a few dissatisfied snorts, had dropped from their
+sitting posture, and were lying close together on the rug, dreaming and
+uttering short commenting barks and whines at intervals. The twins were
+now reposing lazily at the tutor's feet, and did not feel disposed to
+exert themselves even so far as to fetch their own bonbons.
+
+"There's one," said the tutor, taking a fresh cracker from his pocket.
+One end of it was of red and gold paper, the other of transparent green
+stuff with silver lines. The boys pulled it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The report was louder than Jim had expected. "The firing has begun," he
+murmured, involuntarily; "steady, steady!" these last words were to his
+horse, who seemed to be moving under him, not from fear, but from
+impatience. What had been the red and gold paper of the cracker was now
+the scarlet and gold lace of his own cavalry uniform. He knocked a
+speck from his sleeve, and scanned the distant ridge, from which a thin
+line of smoke floated solemnly away, with keen, impatient eyes. Were
+they to stand inactive all the day?
+
+Presently the horse erects his head. His eyes sparkle--he pricks his
+sensitive ears--his nostrils quiver with a strange delight. It is the
+trumpet! Fan farra! Fan farra! The brazen voice speaks--the horses
+move--the plumes wave--the helmets shine. On a summer's day they ride
+slowly, gracefully, calmly down a slope, to Death or Glory. Fan farra!
+Fan farra! Fan farra!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of all this Master Tom knew nothing. The report of the cracker seemed
+to him only an echo in his brain of a sound that had been in his ears
+for thirty-six weary hours. The noise of a heavy sea beating against
+the ship's side in a gale. It was over now, and he was keeping the
+midnight watch on deck, gazing upon the liquid green of the waves,
+which, heaving and seething after storm, were lit with phosphoric
+light, and as the ship held steadily on her course, poured past at the
+rate of twelve knots an hour in a silvery stream. Faster than any ship
+can sail his thoughts travelled home; and as old times came back to
+him, he hardly knew whether what he looked at was the phosphor-lighted
+sea, or green gelatine paper barred with silver. And did the tutor
+speak? Or was it the voice of some sea-monster sounding in his ears?
+
+"The spirits of the storm have gone below to make their report. The
+treasure gained from sunk vessels has been reckoned, and the sea is
+illuminated in honour of the spoil."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The visitor now took a cracker and held it to the young lady. Her end
+was of white paper with a raised pattern; his of dark-blue gelatine
+with gold stars. It snapped, the bonbon dropped between them, and the
+young man got the motto. It was a very bald one--
+
+     "My heart is thine.
+     Wilt thou be mine?"
+
+He was ashamed to show it to her. What could be more meagre? One could
+write a hundred better couplets "standing on one leg," as the saying
+is. He was trying to improvise just one for the occasion, when he
+became aware that the blue sky over his head was dark with the shades
+of night, and lighted with stars. A brook rippled near with a soothing
+monotony. The evening wind sighed through the trees, and wafted the
+fragrance of the sweet bay-leaved willow towards him, and blew a stray
+lock of hair against his face. Yes! _She_ also was there, walking beside
+him, under the scented willow-bushes. Where, why, and whither he did not
+ask to know. She was with him--with him; and he seemed to tread on the
+summer air. He had no doubt as to the nature of his own feelings for her,
+and here was such an opportunity for declaring them as might never occur
+again. Surely now, if ever, he would be eloquent! Thoughts of poetry
+clothed in words of fire must spring unbidden to his lips at such a
+moment. And yet somehow he could not find a single word to say. He beat
+his brains, but not an idea would come forth. Only that idiotic
+cracker motto, which haunted him with its meagre couplet:
+
+     "My heart is thine.
+     Wilt thou be mine?"
+
+Meanwhile they wandered on. The precious time was passing. He must at
+least make a beginning.
+
+"What a fine night it is!" he observed. But, oh dear! that was a
+thousand times balder and more meagre than the cracker motto; and not
+another word could he find to say. At this moment the awkward silence
+was broken by a voice from a neighbouring copse. It was a nightingale
+singing to his mate. There was no lack of eloquence, and of melodious
+eloquence, there. The song was as plaintive as old memories, and as
+full of tenderness as the eyes of the young girl were full of tears.
+They were standing still now, and with her graceful head bent she was
+listening to the bird. He stooped his head near hers, and spoke with a
+simple natural outburst almost involuntary.
+
+"Do you ever think of old times? Do you remember the old house, and the
+fun we used to have? and the tutor whom you pelted with horse-chestnuts
+when you were a little girl? And those cracker bonbons, and the motto
+_we_ drew--
+
+     'My heart is thine.
+     Wilt thou be mine?'"
+
+She smiled, and lifted her eyes ("blue as the sky, and bright as the
+stars," he thought) to his, and answered "Yes."
+
+Then the bonbon motto was avenged, and there was silence. Eloquent,
+perfect, complete, beautiful silence! Only the wind sighed through the
+fragrant willows, the stream rippled, the stars shone, and in the
+neighbouring copse the nightingale sang, and sang, and sang.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the white end of the cracker came into the young lady's hand, she
+was full of admiration for the fine raised pattern. As she held it
+between her fingers it suddenly struck her that she had discovered what
+the tutor's fragrant smoke smelt like. It was like the scent of
+orange-flowers, and had certainly a soporific effect upon the senses.
+She felt very sleepy, and as she stroked the shiny surface of the
+cracker she found herself thinking it was very soft for paper, and then
+rousing herself with a start, and wondering at her own folly in
+speaking thus of the white silk in which she was dressed, and of which
+she was holding up the skirt between her finger and thumb, as if she
+were dancing a minuet.
+
+"It's grandmamma's egg-shell brocade!" she cried. "Oh, Grandmamma! Have
+you given it to me? That lovely old thing! But I thought it was the
+family wedding-dress, and that I was not to have it till I was a
+bride."
+
+"And so you are, my dear. And a fairer bride the sun never shone on,"
+sobbed the old lady, who was kissing and blessing her, and wishing her,
+in the words of the old formula--
+
+         "Health to wear it,
+          Strength to tear it,
+       And money to buy another."
+
+"There is no hope for the last two things, you know," said the young
+girl; "for I am sure that the flag that braved a thousand years was not
+half so strong as your brocade; and as to buying another, there are
+none to be bought in these degenerate days."
+
+The old lady's reply was probably very gracious, for she liked to be
+complimented on the virtues of old things in general, and of her
+egg-shell brocade in particular. But of what she said her granddaughter
+heard nothing. With the strange irregularity of dreams, she found
+herself, she knew not how, in the old church. It was true. She was a
+bride, standing there with old friends and old associations thick
+around her, on the threshold of a new life. The sun shone through the
+stained glass of the windows, and illuminated the brocade, whose
+old-fashioned stiffness so became her childish beauty, and flung a
+thousand new tints over her sunny hair, and drew so powerful a
+fragrance from the orange-blossom with which it was twined, that it was
+almost overpowering. Yes! It was too sweet--too strong. She certainly
+would not be able to bear it much longer without losing her senses. And
+the service was going on. A question had been asked of her, and she
+must reply. She made a strong effort, and said "Yes," simply and very
+earnestly, for it was what she meant. But she had no sooner said it
+than she became uneasily conscious that she had not used the right
+words. Some one laughed. It was the tutor, and his voice jarred and
+disturbed the dream, as a stone troubles the surface of still water.
+The vision trembled, and then broke, and the young lady found herself
+still sitting by the table and fingering the cracker paper, whilst the
+tutor chuckled and rubbed his hands by the fire, and his shadow
+scrambled on the wall like an ape upon a tree. But her "Yes" had passed
+into the young man's dream without disturbing it, and he dreamt on.
+
+It was a cracker like the preceding one that the grandmother and the
+parson pulled together. The old lady had insisted upon it. The good
+rector had shown a tendency to low spirits this evening, and a wish to
+withdraw early. But the old lady did not approve of people "shirking"
+(as boys say) either their duties or their pleasures; and to keep a
+"merry Christmas" in a family circle that had been spared to meet in
+health and happiness, seemed to her to be both the one and the other.
+
+It was his sermon for next day which weighed on the parson's mind. Not
+that he was behindhand with that part of his duties. He was far too
+methodical in his habits for that, and it had been written before the
+bustle of Christmas week began. But after preaching Christmas sermons
+from the same pulpit for thirty-five years, he felt keenly how
+difficult it is to awaken due interest in subjects that are so
+familiar, and to give new force to lessons so often repeated. So he
+wanted a quiet hour in his own study before he went to rest, with the
+sermon that did not satisfy him, and the subject that should be so
+heart-stirring and ever-new,--the Story of Bethlehem.
+
+He consented, however, to pull one cracker with the grandmother, though
+he feared the noise might startle her nerves, and said so.
+
+"Nerves were not invented in my young days," said the old lady, firmly;
+and she took her part in the ensuing explosion without so much as a
+wink.
+
+As the cracker snapped, it seemed to the parson as if the fragrant
+smoke from the yule log were growing denser in the room. Through the
+mist from time to time the face of the tutor loomed large, and then
+disappeared. At last the clouds rolled away, and the parson breathed
+clear air. Clear, yes, and how clear! This brilliant freshness, these
+intense lights and shadows, this mildness and purity in the night air--
+
+"It is not England," he muttered, "it is the East. I have felt no air
+like this since I breathed the air of Palestine."
+
+Over his head, through immeasurable distances, the dark blue space was
+lighted by the great multitude of the stars, whose glittering ranks
+have in that atmosphere a distinctness and a glory unseen with us.
+Perhaps no scene of beauty in the visible creation has proved a more
+hackneyed theme for the poet and the philosopher than a starry night.
+But not all the superabundance of simile and moral illustration with
+which the subject has been loaded can rob the beholder of the freshness
+of its grandeur or the force of its teaching; that noblest and most
+majestic vision of the handiwork of GOD on which the eye of man is here
+permitted to rest.
+
+As the parson gazed he became conscious that he was not alone. Other
+eyes besides his were watching the skies to-night. Dark, profound,
+patient, Eastern eyes, used from the cradle to the grave to watch and
+wait. The eyes of star-gazers and dream-interpreters; men who believed
+the fate of empires to be written in shining characters on the face of
+heaven, as the "Mene, Mene," was written in fire on the walls of the
+Babylonian palace. The old parson was one of the many men of real
+learning and wide reading who pursue their studies in the quiet country
+parishes of England, and it was with the keen interest of intelligence
+that he watched the group of figures that lay near him.
+
+"Is this a vision of the past?" he asked himself. "There can be no
+doubt as to these men. They are star-gazers, magi, and, from their
+dress and bearing, men of high rank; perhaps 'teachers of a higher
+wisdom' in one of the purest philosophies of the old heathen world.
+When one thinks," he pursued, "of the intense interest, the eager
+excitement which the student of history finds in the narrative of the
+past as unfolded in dusty records written by the hand of man, one may
+realize how absorbing must have been that science which professed to
+unveil the future, and to display to the eyes of the wise the fate of
+dynasties written with the finger of GOD amid the stars."
+
+The dark-robed figures were so still that they might almost have been
+carved in stone. The air seemed to grow purer and purer; the stars
+shone brighter and brighter; suspended in ether the planets seemed to
+hang like lamps. Now a shooting meteor passed athwart the sky, and
+vanished behind the hill. But not for this did the watchers move; in
+silence they watched on--till, on a sudden, how and whence the parson
+knew not, across the shining ranks of that immeasurable host, whose
+names and number are known to GOD alone, there passed in slow but
+obvious motion one brilliant solitary star--a star of such surpassing
+brightness that he involuntarily joined in the wild cry of joy and
+greeting with which the Men of the East now prostrated themselves with
+their faces to the earth. He could not understand the language in which,
+with noisy clamour and gesticulation, they broke their former profound
+and patient silence, and greeted the portent for which they had watched.
+But he knew now that these were the Wise Men of the Epiphany, and that
+this was the Star of Bethlehem. In his ears rang the energetic simplicity
+of the Gospel narrative, "When they saw the Star, they rejoiced with
+exceeding great joy."
+
+With exceeding great joy! Ah! happy magi, who (more blest than Balaam
+the son of Beor) were faithful to the dim light vouchsafed to you; the
+Gentile Church may well be proud of your memory. Ye travelled long and
+far to bring royal offerings to the King of the Jews, with a faith not
+found in Israel. Ye saw Him whom prophets and kings had desired to see,
+and were glad. Wise men indeed, and wise with the highest wisdom, in
+that ye suffered yourselves to be taught of GOD.
+
+Then the parson prayed that if this were indeed a dream he might dream
+on; might pass, if only in a vision, over the hill, following the
+footsteps of the magi, whilst the Star went before them, till he should
+see it rest above that city, which, little indeed among the thousands
+of Judah, was yet the birthplace of the Lord's Christ.
+
+"Ah!" he almost sobbed, "let me follow! On my knees let me follow into
+the house and see the Holy Child. In the eyes of how many babies I have
+seen mind and thought far beyond their powers of communication, every
+mother knows. But if at times, with a sort of awe, one sees the
+immortal soul shining through the prison-bars of helpless infancy,
+what, oh! what must it be to behold the GOD-head veiled in flesh through
+the face of a little child!"
+
+The parson stretched out his arms, but even with the passion of his
+words the vision began to break. He dared not move for fear it should
+utterly fade, and as he lay still and silent, the wise men roused their
+followers, and, led by the Star, the train passed solemnly over the
+distant hills.
+
+Then the clear night became clouded with fragrant vapour, and with a
+sigh the parson awoke.
+
+       *       *       *       *      *
+
+When the cracker snapped and the white end was left in the grandmother's
+hand, she was astonished to perceive (as she thought) that the white
+lace veil which she had worn over her wedding bonnet was still in her
+possession, and that she was turning it over in her fingers. "I fancied
+I gave it to Jemima when her first baby was born," she muttered
+dreamily. It was darned and yellow, but it carried her back all the same,
+and recalled happy hours with wonderful vividness. She remembered the
+post-chaise and the postillion. "He was such a pert little fellow, and
+how we laughed at him! He must be either dead or a very shaky old man
+by now," said the old lady. She seemed to smell the scent of meadow-sweet
+that was so powerful in a lane through which they drove; and how clearly
+she could see the clean little country inn where they spent the
+honeymoon! She seemed to be there now, taking off her bonnet and shawl,
+in the quaint clean chamber, with the heavy oak rafters, and the jasmine
+coming in at the window, and glancing with pardonable pride at the fair
+face reflected in the mirror. But as she laid her things on the
+patchwork coverlet, it seemed to her that the lace veil became fine white
+linen, and was folded about a figure that lay in the bed; and when she
+looked round the room again everything was draped in white--white blinds
+hung before the windows, and even the old oak chest and the press were
+covered with clean white cloths, after the decent custom of the country;
+whilst from the church tower without the passing bell tolled slowly. She
+had not seen the face of the corpse, and a strange anxiety came over her
+to count the strokes of the bell, which tell if it is a man, woman, or
+child who has passed away. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven! No
+more. It was a woman, and when she looked on the face of the dead she
+saw her own. But even as she looked the fair linen of the grave-clothes
+became the buoyant drapery of another figure, in whose face she found a
+strange recognition of the lineaments of the dead with all the
+loveliness of the bride. But ah! more, much more! On that face there was
+a beauty not doomed to wither, before those happy eyes lay a future
+unshadowed by the imperfections of earthly prospects, and the folds of
+that robe were white as no fuller on earth can white them. The window
+curtain parted, the jasmine flowers bowed their heads, the spirit passed
+from the chamber of death, and the old lady's dream was ended.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss Letitia had shared a cracker with the widow. The widow squeaked
+when the cracker went off, and then insisted upon giving up the smart
+paper and everything to Miss Letitia. She had always given up
+everything to Mr. Jones, she did so now to Master MacGreedy, and was
+quite unaccustomed to keep anything for her own share. She did not give
+this explanation herself, but so it was.
+
+The cracker that thus fell into the hands of Miss Letitia was one of
+those new-fashioned ones that have a paper pattern of some article of
+dress wrapped up in them instead of a bonbon. This one was a paper
+bonnet made in the latest _mode_--of green tissue-paper; and Miss Letitia
+stuck it on the top of her chignon, with an air that the widow envied
+from the bottom of her heart. She had not the gift of "carrying off"
+her clothes. But to the tutor, on the contrary, it seemed to afford
+the most extreme amusement; and as Miss Letitia bowed gracefully hither
+and thither in the energy of her conversation with the widow, the green
+paper fluttering with each emphasis, he fairly shook with delight, his
+shadow dancing like a maniac beside him. He had scattered some more
+powder on the coals, and it may have been that the smoke got into her
+eyes, and confused her ideas of colour, but Miss Letitia was struck
+with a fervid and otherwise unaccountable admiration for the paper ends
+of the cracker, which were most unusually ugly. One was of a sallowish
+salmon-colour, and transparent, the other was of brick-red paper with a
+fringe. As Miss Letitia turned them over, she saw, to her unspeakable
+delight, that there were several yards of each material, and her
+peculiar genius instantly seized upon the fact that in the present
+rage for double skirts there might be enough of the two kinds to
+combine into a fashionable dress.
+
+It had never struck her before that a dirty salmon went well with
+brick-red. "They blend so becomingly, my dear," she murmured; "and I
+think the under-skirt will sit well, it is so stiff."
+
+The widow did not reply. The fumes of the tutor's compound made her
+sleepy, and though she nodded to Miss Letitia's observations, it was
+less from appreciation of their force, than from inability to hold up
+her head. She was dreaming uneasy, horrible dreams, like nightmares; in
+which from time to time there mingled expressions of doubt and
+dissatisfaction which fell from Miss Letitia's lips. "Just half-a-yard
+short--no gores--false hem," (and the melancholy reflection that)
+"flounces take so much stuff." Then the tutor's face kept appearing and
+vanishing with horrible grimaces through the mist. At last the widow
+fell fairly asleep, and dreamed that she was married to the Blue Beard
+of nursery annals, and that on his return from his memorable journey he
+had caught her in the act of displaying the mysterious cupboard to Miss
+Letitia. As he waved his scimitar over her head, he seemed
+unaccountably to assume the form and features of the tutor. In her
+agitation the poor woman could think of no plea against his severity,
+except that the cupboard was already crammed with the corpses of his
+previous wives, and there was no room for her. She was pleading this
+argument when Miss Letitia's voice broke in upon her dream with
+decisive accent:
+
+"There's enough for two bodies."
+
+The widow shrieked and awoke.
+
+"High and low," explained Miss Letitia. "My dear, what _are_ you
+screaming about?"
+
+"I am very sorry indeed," said the widow; "I beg your pardon, I'm sure,
+a thousand times. But since Mr. Jones's death I have been so nervous,
+and I had such a horrible dream. And, oh dear! oh dear!" she added,
+"what is the matter with my precious child? Macready, love, come to
+your mamma, my pretty lamb."
+
+Ugh! ugh! There were groans from the corner where Master MacGreedy sat
+on his crackers as if they were eggs, and he hatching them. He had only
+touched one, as yet, of the stock he had secured. He had picked it to
+pieces, had avoided the snap, and had found a large comfit like an egg
+with a rough shell inside. Every one knows that the goodies in crackers
+are not of a very superior quality. There is a large amount of white
+lead in the outside thinly disguised by a shabby flavour of sugar. But
+that outside once disposed of, there lies an almond at the core. Now an
+almond is a very delicious thing in itself, and doubly nice when it
+takes the taste of white paint and chalk out of one's mouth. But in
+spite of all the white lead and sugar and chalk through which he had
+sucked his way, MacGreedy could not come to the almond. A dozen times
+had he been on the point of spitting out the delusive sweetmeat; but
+just as he thought of it he was sure to feel a bit of hard rough edge,
+and thinking he had gained the kernel at last, he held valiantly on. It
+only proved to be a rough bit of sugar, however, and still the
+interminable coating melted copiously in his mouth; and still the
+clean, fragrant almond evaded his hopes. At last with a groan he spat
+the seemingly undiminished bonbon on to the floor, and turned as white
+and trembling as an arrowroot blanc-mange.
+
+In obedience to the widow's entreaties the tutor opened a window, and
+tried to carry MacGreedy to the air; but that young gentleman utterly
+refused to allow the tutor to approach him, and was borne howling to
+bed by his mamma.
+
+With the fresh air the fumes of the fragrant smoke dispersed, and the
+company roused themselves.
+
+"Rather oppressive, eh?" said the master of the house, who had had his
+dream too, with which we have no concern.
+
+The dogs had had theirs also, and had testified to the same in their
+sleep by low growls and whines. Now they shook themselves, and rubbed
+against each other, growling in a warlike manner through their teeth,
+and wagging peaceably with their little stumpy tails.
+
+The twins shook themselves, and fell to squabbling as to whether they
+had been to sleep or no; and, if either, which of them had given way to
+that weakness.
+
+Miss Letitia took the paper bonnet from her head with a nervous laugh,
+and after looking regretfully at the cracker papers put them in her
+pocket.
+
+The parson went home through the frosty night. In the village street he
+heard a boy's voice singing two lines of the Christian hymn--
+
+     "Trace we the Babe Who hath redeemed our loss
+     From the poor Manger to the bitter Cross;"
+
+and his eyes filled with tears.
+
+The old lady went to bed and slept in peace.
+
+"In all the thirty-five years we have been privileged to hear you,
+sir," she told the rector next day after service, "I never heard such a
+Christmas sermon before."
+
+The visitor carefully preserved the blue paper and the cracker motto.
+He came down early next morning to find the white half to put with
+them. He did not find it, for the young lady had taken it the night
+before.
+
+The tutor had been in the room before him, wandering round the scene of
+the evening's festivities.
+
+The yule log lay black and cold upon the hearth, and the tutor nodded
+to it. "I told you how it would be," he said; "but never mind, you
+have had your day, and a merry one too." In the corner lay the heap of
+crackers which Master MacGreedy had been too ill to remember when he
+retired. The tutor pocketed them with a grim smile.
+
+As to the comfit, it was eaten by one of the dogs, who had come down
+earliest of all. He swallowed it whole, so whether it contained an
+almond or not, remains a mystery to the present time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+AMELIA AND THE DWARFS.
+
+
+My godmother's grandmother knew a good deal about the fairies.
+_Her_ grandmother had seen a fairy rade on a Roodmas Eve, and she
+herself could remember a copper vessel of a queer shape which had been
+left by the elves on some occasion at an old farm-house among the
+hills, The following story came from her, and where she got it I do not
+know. She used to say it was a pleasant tale, with a good moral in the
+inside of it. My godmother often observed that a tale without a moral
+was like a nut without a kernel; not worth the cracking. (We called
+fire-side stories "cracks" in our part of the country.) This is the
+tale.
+
+
+AMELIA.
+
+A couple of gentlefolk once lived in a certain part of England. (My
+godmother never would tell the name either of the place or the people,
+even if she knew it. She said one ought not to expose one's neighbours'
+failings more than there was due occasion for.) They had an only child,
+a daughter, whose name was Amelia. They were an easy-going,
+good-humoured couple; "rather soft," my godmother said, but she was apt
+to think anybody "soft" who came from the southern shires, as these
+people did. Amelia, who had been born farther north, was by no means
+so. She had a strong resolute will, and a clever head of her own,
+though she was but a child. She had a way of her own too, and had it
+very completely. Perhaps because she was an only child, or perhaps
+because they were so easy-going, her parents spoiled her. She was,
+beyond question, the most tiresome little girl in that or any other
+neighbourhood. From her baby days her father and mother had taken every
+opportunity of showing her to their friends, and there was not a friend
+who did not dread the infliction. When the good lady visited her
+acquaintances, she always took Amelia with her, and if the
+acquaintances were fortunate enough to see from the windows who was
+coming, they used to snatch up any delicate knick-knacks, or brittle
+ornaments lying about, and put them away, crying, "What is to be done?
+Here comes Amelia!"
+
+When Amelia came in, she would stand and survey the room, whilst her
+mother saluted her acquaintance; and if anything struck her fancy, she
+would interrupt the greetings to draw her mother's attention to it,
+with a twitch of her shawl, "Oh, look, Mamma, at that funny bird in the
+glass case!" or perhaps, "Mamma, Mamma! There's a new carpet since we
+were here last;" for, as her mother said, she was "a very observing
+child."
+
+Then she would wander round the room, examining and fingering
+everything, and occasionally coming back with something in her hand to
+tread on her mother's dress, and break in upon the ladies' conversation
+with--"Mamma! Mamma! What's the good of keeping this old basin? It's
+been broken and mended, and some of the pieces are quite loose now. I
+can feel them:" or--addressing the lady of the house--"That's not a
+real ottoman in the corner. It's a box covered with chintz. I know, for
+I've looked."
+
+Then her mamma would say, reprovingly, "My _dear_ Amelia!"
+
+And perhaps the lady of the house would beg, "Don't play with that old
+china, my love; for though it is mended, it is very valuable;" and her
+mother would add, "My dear Amelia, you must not."
+
+Sometimes the good lady said, "You _must_ not." Sometimes she
+tried--"You must _not_" When both these failed, and Amelia was balancing
+the china bowl on her finger-ends, her mamma would get flurried, and when
+Amelia flurried her, she always rolled her r's, and emphasized her words,
+so that it sounded thus:
+
+"My dear-r-r-r-Ramelia! You must not."
+
+At which Amelia would not so much as look round, till perhaps the bowl
+slipped from her fingers, and was smashed into unmendable fragments.
+Then her mamma would exclaim, "Oh, dear-r-r-r, oh, dear-r-Ramelia" and
+the lady of the house would try to look as if it did not matter, and
+when Amelia and her mother departed, would pick up the bits, and pour
+out her complaints to her lady friends, most of whom had suffered many
+such damages at the hands of this "very observing child."
+
+When the good couple received their friends at home, there was no
+escaping from Amelia. If it was a dinner-party, she came in with the
+dessert, or perhaps sooner. She would take up her position near some
+one, generally the person most deeply engaged in conversation, and
+either lean heavily against him or her, or climb on to his or her knee,
+without being invited. She would break in upon the most interesting
+discussion with her own little childish affairs, in the following
+style--"I've been out to-day. I walked to the town. I jumped across
+three brooks. Can you jump? Papa gave me sixpence to-day. I am saving
+up my money to be rich. You may cut me an orange; no, I'll take it to
+Mr. Brown, he peels it with a spoon and turns the skin back. Mr. Brown!
+Mr. Brown! Don't talk to Mamma, but peel me an orange, please. Mr.
+Brown! I'm playing with your finger-glass."
+
+And when the finger-glass full of cold water had been upset on to Mr.
+Brown's shirt-front, Amelia's mamma would cry--"Oh dear, oh
+dear-r-Ramelia!" and carry her off with the ladies to the drawing-room.
+
+Here she would scramble on to the ladies' knees, or trample out the
+gathers of their dresses, and fidget with their ornaments, startling
+some luckless lady by the announcement, "I've got your bracelet undone
+at last!" who would find one of the divisions broken open by force,
+Amelia not understanding the working of a clasp.
+
+Or perhaps two young lady friends would get into a quiet corner for a
+chat. The observing child would sure to spy them, and run on to them,
+crushing their flowers and ribbons, and crying--"You two want to talk
+secrets, I know. I can hear what you say. I'm going to listen, I am.
+And I shall tell, too;" when perhaps a knock at the door announced the
+Nurse to take Miss Amelia to bed, and spread a general rapture of
+relief.
+
+Then Amelia would run to trample and worry her mother, and after much
+teasing, and clinging, and complaining, the Nurse would be dismissed,
+and the fond mamma would turn to the lady next to her, and say with a
+smile--"I suppose I must let her stay up a little. It is such a treat
+to her, poor child!"
+
+But it was no treat to the visitors.
+
+Besides tormenting her fellow-creatures, Amelia had a trick of teasing
+animals. She was really fond of dogs, but she was still fonder of doing
+what she was wanted not to do, and of worrying everything and everybody
+about her. So she used to tread on the tips of their tails, and pretend
+to give them biscuit, and then hit them on the nose, besides pulling at
+those few, long, sensitive hairs which thin-skinned dogs wear on the
+upper lip.
+
+Now Amelia's mother's acquaintances were so very well-bred and amiable,
+that they never spoke their minds to either the mother or the daughter
+about what they endured from the latter's rudeness, wilfulness, and
+powers of destruction. But this was not the case with the dogs, and
+they expressed their sentiments by many a growl and snap. At last one
+day Amelia was tormenting a snow-white bulldog (who was certainly as
+well-bred and as amiable as any living creature in the kingdom), and
+she did not see that even his patience was becoming worn out. His pink
+nose became crimson with increased irritation, his upper lip twitched
+over his teeth, behind which he was rolling as many warning R's as
+Amelia's mother herself. She finally held out a bun towards him, and
+just as he was about to take it, she snatched it away and kicked him
+instead. This fairly exasperated the bulldog, and as Amelia would not
+let him bite the bun, he bit Amelia's leg.
+
+Her mamma was so distressed that she fell into hysterics, and hardly
+knew what she was saying. She said the bulldog must be shot for fear he
+should go mad, and Amelia's wound must be done with a red-hot poker for
+fear _she_ should go mad (with hydrophobia). And as of course she
+couldn't bear the pain of this, she must have chloroform, and she would
+most probably die of that; for as one in several thousands dies
+annually under chloroform, it was evident that her chance of life was
+very small indeed. So, as the poor lady said, "Whether we shoot Amelia
+and burn the bulldog--at least I mean shoot the bulldog and burn Amelia
+with a red-hot poker--or leave it alone; and whether Amelia or the
+bulldog has chloroform or bears it without--it seems to be death or
+madness every way!"
+
+And as the doctor did not come fast enough, she ran out without her
+bonnet to meet him, and Amelia's papa, who was very much distressed
+too, ran after her with her bonnet. Meanwhile the doctor came in by
+another way, and found Amelia sitting on the dining-room floor with the
+bulldog, and crying bitterly. She was telling him that they wanted to
+shoot him, but that they should not, for it was all her fault and not
+his. But she did not tell him that she was to be burnt with a red-hot
+poker, for she thought it might hurt his feelings. And then she wept
+afresh, and kissed the bulldog, and the bulldog kissed her with his red
+tongue, and rubbed his pink nose against her, and beat his own tail
+much harder on the floor than Amelia had ever hit it. She said the same
+things to the doctor, but she told him also that she was willing to be
+burnt without chloroform if it must be done, and if they would spare
+the bulldog. And though she looked very white, she meant what she said.
+
+But the doctor looked at her leg, and found that it was only a snap,
+and not a deep wound; and then he looked at the bulldog, and saw that
+so far from looking mad, he looked a great deal more sensible than
+anybody in the house. So he only washed Amelia's leg and bound it up,
+and she was not burnt with the poker, neither did she get hydrophobia;
+but she had got a good lesson on manners, and thenceforward she always
+behaved with the utmost propriety to animals, though she tormented her
+mother's friends as much as ever.
+
+Now although Amelia's mamma's acquaintances were too polite to complain
+before her face, they made up for it by what they said behind her back.
+In allusion to the poor lady's ineffectual remonstrances, one gentleman
+said that the more mischief Amelia did, the dearer she seemed to grow
+to her mother. And somebody else replied that however dear she might be
+as a daughter, she was certainly a very _dear_ friend, and proposed
+that they should send in a bill for all the damages she had done in the
+course of the year, as a round robin to her parents at Christmas. From
+which it may be seen that Amelia was not popular with her parents'
+friends, as (to do grown-up people justice) good children almost
+invariably are.
+
+If she was not a favourite in the drawing-room, she was still less so
+in the nursery, where, besides all the hardships naturally belonging to
+attendance on a spoilt child, the poor Nurse was kept, as she said, "on
+the continual go" by Amelia's reckless destruction of her clothes. It
+was not fair wear and tear, it was not an occasional fall in the mire,
+or an accidental rent or two during a game at "Hunt the Hare," but it
+was constant wilful destruction, which Nurse had to repair as best she
+might. No entreaties would induce Amelia to "take care" of anything.
+She walked obstinately on the muddy side of the road when Nurse pointed
+out the clean parts, kicking up the dirt with her feet; if she climbed
+a wall she never tried to free her dress if it had caught; on she
+rushed, and half a skirt might be left behind for any care she had in
+the matter. "They must be mended," or "They must be washed," was all
+she thought about it.
+
+"You seem to think things clean and mend themselves, Miss Amelia," said
+poor Nurse one day.
+
+"No, I don't," said Amelia, rudely. "I think you do them; what are you
+here for?"
+
+But though she spoke in this insolent and unlady-like fashion, Amelia
+really did not realize what the tasks were which her carelessness
+imposed on other people. When every hour of Nurse's day had been spent
+in struggling to keep her wilful young lady regularly fed, decently
+dressed, and moderately well behaved (except, indeed, those hours when
+her mother was fighting the same battle down-stairs); and when at last,
+after the hardest struggle of all, she had been got to bed not more
+than two hours later than her appointed time, even then there was no
+rest for Nurse. Amelia's mamma could at last lean back in her chair and
+have a quiet chat with her husband, which was not broken in upon every
+two minutes, and Amelia herself was asleep; but Nurse must sit up for
+hours wearing out her eyes by the light of a tallow candle, in
+fine-darning great, jagged, and most unnecessary holes in Amelia's
+muslin dresses. Or perhaps she had to wash and iron clothes for
+Amelia's wear next day. For sometimes she was so very destructive, that
+towards the end of the week she had used up all her clothes and had no
+clean ones to fall back upon.
+
+Amelia's meals were another source of trouble. She would not wear a
+pinafore; if it had been put on, she would burst the strings, and
+perhaps in throwing it away knock her plate of mutton broth over the
+tablecloth and her own dress. Then she fancied first one thing and then
+another; she did not like this or that; she wanted a bit cut here or
+there. Her mamma used to begin by saying, "My dear-r-Ramelia, you must
+not be so wasteful," and she used to end by saying, "The dear child has
+positively no appetite;" which seemed to be a good reason for not
+wasting any more food upon her; but with Amelia's mamma it only meant
+that she might try a little cutlet and tomato sauce when she had half
+finished her roast beef, and that most of the cutlet and all the mashed
+potato might be exchanged for plum tart and custard; and that when she
+had spooned up the custard and played with the paste, and put the plum
+stones on the tablecloth, she might be tempted with a little Stilton
+cheese and celery, and exchange that for anything that caught her fancy
+in the dessert dishes.
+
+The Nurse used to say, "Many a poor child would thank GOD for what you
+waste every meal-time, Miss Amelia," and to quote a certain good old
+saying, "Waste not, want not." But Amelia's mamma allowed her to send
+away on her plates what would have fed another child, day after day.
+
+
+UNDER THE HAYCOCKS.
+
+It was summer, and haytime. Amelia had been constantly in the hayfield,
+and the haymakers had constantly wished that she had been anywhere
+else. She mislaid the rakes, nearly killed herself and several other
+persons with a fork, and overturned one haycock after another as fast
+as they were made. At tea-time it was hoped that she would depart, but
+she teased her mamma to have the tea brought into the field, and her
+mamma said, "The poor child must have a treat sometimes," and so it was
+brought out.
+
+After this she fell off the haycart, and was a good deal shaken, but
+not hurt. So she was taken indoors, and the haymakers worked hard and
+cleared the field, all but a few cocks which were left till the
+morning.
+
+The sun set, the dew fell, the moon rose. It was a lovely night. Amelia
+peeped from behind the blinds of the drawing-room windows, and saw four
+haycocks, each with a deep shadow reposing at its side. The rest of the
+field was swept clean, and looked pale in the moonshine. It was a
+lovely night.
+
+"I want to go out," said Amelia. "They will take away those cocks
+before I can get at them in the morning, and there will be no more
+jumping and tumbling, I shall go out and have some fun now."
+
+"My dear Amelia, you must not," said her mamma; and her papa added, "I
+won't hear of it." So Amelia went up-stairs to grumble to Nurse; but
+Nurse only said, "Now, my dear Miss Amelia, do go quietly to bed, like
+a dear love. The field is all wet with dew. Besides, it's a moonlight
+night, and who knows what's abroad? You might see the fairies--bless us
+and sain us!--and what not. There's been a magpie hopping up and
+down near the house all day, and that's a sign of ill-luck."
+
+"I don't care for magpies," said Amelia; "I threw a stone at that one
+to-day."
+
+And she left the nursery, and swung down-stairs on the rail of the
+banisters. But she did not go into the drawing-room; she opened the
+front door and went out into the moonshine.
+
+It was a lovely night. But there was something strange about it.
+Everything looked asleep, and yet seemed not only awake but watching.
+There was not a sound, and yet the air seemed full of half-sounds. The
+child was quite alone, and yet at every step she fancied some one
+behind her, on one side of her, somewhere, and found it only a rustling
+leaf or a passing shadow. She was soon in the hayfield, where it was
+just the same; so that when she fancied that something green was moving
+near the first haycock she thought very little of it, till, coming
+closer, she plainly perceived by the moonlight a tiny man dressed in
+green, with a tall, pointed hat, and very, very long tips to his shoes,
+tying his shoestring with his foot on a stubble stalk. He had the most
+wizened of faces, and when he got angry with his shoe, he pulled so wry
+a grimace that it was quite laughable. At last he stood up, stepping
+carefully over the stubble, went up to the first haycock, and drawing
+out a hollow grass stalk blew upon it till his cheeks were puffed like
+footballs. And yet there was no sound, only a half-sound, as of a horn
+blown in the far distance, or in a dream. Presently the point of a tall
+hat, and finally just such another little wizened face, poked out
+through the side of the haycock.
+
+"Can we hold revel here to-night?" asked the little green man.
+
+"That indeed you cannot," answered the other; "we have hardly room to
+turn round as it is, with all Amelia's dirty frocks."
+
+"Ah, bah!" said the dwarf; and he walked on to the next haycock, Amelia
+cautiously following.
+
+Here he blew again, and a head was put out as before; on which he said,
+
+"Can we hold revel here to-night?"
+
+"How is it possible," was the reply, "when there is not a place where
+one can so much as set down an acorn cup, for Amelia's broken
+victuals?"
+
+"Fie! fie!" said the dwarf, and went on to the third, where all
+happened as before; and he asked the old question,
+
+"Can we hold revel here to-night?"
+
+"Can you dance on glass and crockery sherds?" inquired the other.
+"Amelia's broken gimcracks are everywhere."
+
+"Pshaw!" snorted the dwarf, frowning terribly; and when he came to the
+fourth haycock he blew such an angry blast that the grass stalk split
+into seven pieces. But he met with no better success than before. Only
+the point of a hat came through the hay, and a feeble voice piped in
+tones of depression--"The broken threads would entangle our feet. It's
+all Amelia's fault. If we could only get hold of her!"
+
+"If she's wise, she'll keep as far from these haycocks as she can,"
+snarled the dwarf, angrily; and he shook his fist as much as to say,
+"If she did come, I should not receive her very pleasantly."
+
+Now with Amelia, to hear that she had better not do something, was to
+make her wish at once to do it; and as she was not at all wanting in
+courage, she pulled the dwarf's little cloak, just as she would have
+twitched her mother's shawl, and said (with that sort of snarly whine
+in which spoilt children generally speak)--"Why shouldn't I come to the
+haycocks if I want to? They belong to my papa, and I shall come if I
+like. But you have no business here."
+
+"Nightshade and hemlock!" ejaculated the little man, "you are not
+lacking in impudence. Perhaps your Sauciness is not quite aware how
+things are distributed in this world?" saying which he lifted his
+pointed shoes and began to dance and sing,
+
+     "All under the sun belongs to men,
+     And all under the moon to the fairies.
+         So, so, so! Ho, ho, ho!
+     All under the moon to the fairies."
+
+As he sang "Ho, ho, ho!" the little man turned head over heels; and
+though by this time Amelia would gladly have got away, she could not,
+for the dwarf seemed to dance and tumble round her, and always to cut
+off the chance of escape; whilst numberless voices from all around
+seemed to join in the chorus, with
+
+
+         "So, so, so! Ho, ho, ho!
+     All under the moon to the fairies."
+
+"And now," said the little man, "to work! And you have plenty of work
+before you, so trip on, to the first haycock."
+
+"I shan't!" said Amelia.
+
+"On with you!" repeated the dwarf.
+
+"I won't!" said Amelia.
+
+But the little man, who was behind her, pinched her funny-bone with his
+lean fingers, and, as everybody knows, that is agony; so Amelia ran on,
+and tried to get away. But when she went too fast, the dwarf trod on
+her heels with his long-pointed shoe, and if she did not go fast
+enough, he pinched her funny-bone. So for once in her life she was
+obliged to do as she was told. As they ran, tall hats and wizened faces
+were popped out on all sides of the haycocks, like blanched almonds on
+a tipsy cake; and whenever the dwarf pinched Amelia, or trod on her
+heels, the goblins cried "Ho, ho, ho!" with such horrible contortions
+as they laughed, that it was hideous to behold them.
+
+"Here is Amelia!" shouted the dwarf when they reached the first
+haycock.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed all the others, as they poked out here and there
+from the hay.
+
+"Bring a stock," said the dwarf; on which the hay was lifted, and out
+ran six or seven dwarfs, carrying what seemed to Amelia to be a little
+girl like herself. And when she looked closer, to her horror and
+surprise the figure was exactly like her--it was her own face, clothes,
+and everything.
+
+"Shall we kick it into the house?" asked the goblins.
+
+"No," said the dwarf; "lay it down by the haycock. The father and
+mother are coming to seek her now."
+
+When Amelia heard this she began to shriek for help; but she was pushed
+into the haycock, where her loudest cries sounded like the chirruping
+of a grasshopper.
+
+It was really a fine sight to see the inside of the cock.
+
+Farmers do not like to see flowers in a hayfield, but the fairies do.
+They had arranged all the buttercups, &c., in patterns on the haywalls;
+bunches of meadow-sweet swung from the roof like censers, and perfumed
+the air; and the ox-eye daisies which formed the ceiling gave a light
+like stars. But Amelia cared for none of this. She only struggled to
+peep through the hay, and she did see her father and mother and nurse
+come down the lawn, followed by the other servants, looking for her.
+When they saw the stock they ran to raise it with exclamations of pity
+and surprise. The stock moaned faintly, and Amelia's mamma wept, and
+Amelia herself shouted with all her might.
+
+"What's that?" said her mamma. (It is not easy to deceive a mother.)
+
+"Only the grasshoppers, my dear," said Papa. "Let us get the poor child
+home."
+
+The stock moaned again, and the mother said, "Oh dear! oh
+dear-r-Ramelia!" and followed in tears.
+
+"Rub her eyes," said the dwarf; on which Amelia's eyes were rubbed with
+some ointment, and when she took a last peep, she could see that the
+stock was nothing but a hairy imp, with a face like the oldest and most
+grotesque of apes.
+
+"--and send her below," added the dwarf. On which the field opened, and
+Amelia was pushed underground.
+
+She found herself on a sort of open heath, where no houses were to be
+seen. Of course there was no moonshine, and yet it was neither daylight
+nor dark. There was as the light of early dawn, and every sound was at
+once clear and dreamy, like the first sounds of the day coming through
+the fresh air before sunrise. Beautiful flowers crept over the heath,
+whose tints were constantly changing in the subdued light; and as the
+hues changed and blended, the flowers gave forth different perfumes.
+All would have been charming but that at every few paces the paths were
+blocked by large clothes-baskets full of dirty frocks, And the frocks
+were Amelia's. Torn, draggled, wet, covered with sand, mud, and dirt of
+all kinds, Amelia recognized them.
+
+"You've got to wash them all," said the dwarf, who was behind her as
+usual; "that's what you've come down for--not because your society is
+particularly pleasant. So the sooner you begin the better."
+
+"I can't," said Amelia (she had already learnt that "I won't" is not an
+answer for every one); "send them up to Nurse, and she'll do them. It
+is her business."
+
+"What Nurse can do she has done, and now it's time for you to begin,"
+said the dwarf. "Sooner or later the mischief done by spoilt children's
+wilful disobedience comes back on their own hands. Up to a certain
+point we help them, for we love children, and we are wilful ourselves.
+But there are limits to everything. If you can't wash your dirty
+frocks, it is time you learnt to do so, if only that you may know what
+the trouble is you impose on other people. _She_ will teach you."
+
+The dwarf kicked out his foot in front of him, and pointed with his
+long toe to a woman who sat by a fire made upon the heath, where a pot
+was suspended from crossed poles. It was like a bit of a gipsy
+encampment, and the woman seemed to be a real woman, not a fairy--which
+was the case, as Amelia afterwards found. She had lived underground for
+many years, and was the dwarfs' servant.
+
+And this was how it came about that Amelia had to wash her dirty
+frocks. Let any little girl try to wash one of her dresses; not to half
+wash it, not to leave it stained with dirty water, but to wash it quite
+clean. Let her then try to starch and iron it--in short, to make it
+look as if it had come from the laundress--and she will have some idea
+of what poor Amelia had to learn to do. There was no help for it. When
+she was working she very seldom saw the dwarfs; but if she were idle or
+stubborn, or had any hopes of getting away, one was sure to start up at
+her elbow and pinch her funny-bone, or poke her in the ribs, till she
+did her best. Her back ached with stooping over the wash-tub; her hands
+and arms grew wrinkled with soaking in hot soapsuds, and sore with
+rubbing. Whatever she did not know how to do, the woman of the heath
+taught her. At first, whilst Amelia was sulky, the woman of the heath
+was sharp and cross; but when Amelia became willing and obedient, she
+was good-natured, and even helped her.
+
+The first time that Amelia felt hungry she asked for some food.
+
+"By all means," said one of the dwarfs; "there is plenty down here
+which belongs to you;" and he led her away till they came to a place
+like the first, except that it was covered with plates of broken meats;
+all the bits of good meat, pie, pudding, bread-and-butter, &c., that
+Amelia had wasted beforetime.
+
+"I can't eat cold scraps like these," said Amelia, turning away.
+
+"Then what did you ask for food for before you were hungry?" screamed
+the dwarf, and he pinched her and sent her about her business.
+
+After a while she became so famished that she was glad to beg humbly to
+be allowed to go for food; and she ate a cold chop and the remains of a
+rice pudding with thankfulness. How delicious they tasted! She was
+surprised herself at the good things she had rejected. After a time she
+fancied she would like to warm up some of the cold meat in a pan, which
+the woman of the heath used to cook her own dinner in, and she asked
+for leave to do so.
+
+"You may do anything you like to make yourself comfortable, if you do
+it yourself," said she; and Amelia, who had been watching her for many
+times, became quite expert in cooking up the scraps.
+
+As there was no real daylight underground, so also there was no night.
+When the old woman was tired she lay down and had a nap, and when she
+thought that Amelia had earned a rest, she allowed her to do the same.
+It was never cold, and it never rained, so they slept on the heath
+among the flowers.
+
+They say that "It's a long lane that has no turning," and the hardest
+tasks come to an end some time, and Amelia's dresses were clean at
+last; but then a more wearisome work was before her. They had to be
+mended. Amelia looked at the jagged rents made by the hedges; the great
+gaping holes in front where she had put her foot through; the torn
+tucks and gathers. First she wept, then she bitterly regretted that she
+had so often refused to do her sewing at home that she was very awkward
+with her needle. Whether she ever would have got through this task
+alone is doubtful, but she had by this time become so well-behaved and
+willing that the old woman was kind to her, and, pitying her blundering
+attempts, she helped her a great deal; whilst Amelia would cook the old
+woman's victuals, or repeat stories and pieces of poetry to amuse her.
+
+"How glad I am that I ever learnt anything!" thought the poor child:
+"everything one learns seems to come in useful some time."
+
+At last the dresses were finished.
+
+"Do you think I shall be allowed to go home now?" Amelia asked of the
+woman of the heath.
+
+"Not yet," said she; "you have got to mend the broken gimcracks next."
+
+"But when I have done all my tasks," Amelia said; "will they let me go
+then?"
+
+"That depends," said the woman, and she sat silent over the fire; but
+Amelia wept so bitterly, that she pitied her and said--"Only dry your
+eyes, for the fairies hate tears, and I will tell you all I know and do
+the best for you I can. You see, when you first came you were--excuse
+me!--such an unlicked cub; such a peevish, selfish, wilful, useless,
+and ill-mannered little miss, that neither the fairies nor anybody else
+were likely to keep you any longer than necessary. But now you are such
+a willing, handy, and civil little thing, and so pretty and graceful
+withal, that I think it is very likely that they will want to keep you
+altogether. I think you had better make up your mind to it. They are
+kindly little folk, and will make a pet of you in the end."
+
+"Oh, no! no!" moaned poor Amelia; "I want to be with my mother, my poor
+dear mother! I want to make up for being a bad child so long. Besides,
+surely that 'stock,' as they called her, will want to come back to her
+own people."
+
+"As to that," said the woman, "after a time the stock will affect
+mortal illness, and will then take possession of the first black cat
+she sees, and in that shape leave the house, and come home. But the
+figure that is like you will remain lifeless in the bed, and will be
+duly buried. Then your people, believing you to be dead, will never
+look for you, and you will always remain here. However, as this
+distresses you so, I will give you some advice. Can you dance?"
+
+"Yes," said Amelia; "I did attend pretty well to my dancing lessons. I
+was considered rather clever about it."
+
+"At any spare moments you find," continued the woman, "dance, dance all
+your dances, and as well as you can. The dwarfs love dancing."
+
+"And then?" said Amelia.
+
+"Then, perhaps some night they will take you up to dance with them in
+the meadows above-ground."
+
+"But I could not get away. They would tread on my heels--oh! I could
+never escape them."
+
+"I know that," said the woman; "your only chance is this. If ever, when
+dancing in the meadows, you can find a four-leaved clover, hold it in
+your hand, and wish to be at home. Then no one can stop you. Meanwhile
+I advise you to seem happy, that they may think you are content, and
+have forgotten the world. And dance, above all, dance!"
+
+And Amelia, not to be behindhand, began then and there to dance some
+pretty figures on the heath. As she was dancing the dwarf came by.
+
+"Ho, ho!" said he, "you can dance, can you?"
+
+"When I am happy I can," said Amelia, performing several graceful
+movements as she spoke.
+
+"What are you pleased about now?" snapped the dwarf, suspiciously.
+
+"Have I not reason?" said Amelia. "The dresses are washed and mended."
+
+"Then up with them!" returned the dwarf. On which half-a-dozen elves
+popped the whole lot into a big basket and kicked them up into the
+world, where they found their way to the right wardrobes somehow.
+
+As the woman of the heath had said, Amelia was soon set to a new task.
+When she bade the old woman farewell, she asked if she could do nothing
+for her if ever she got at liberty herself.
+
+"Can I do nothing to get you back to your old home?" Amelia cried, for
+she thought of others now as well as herself.
+
+"No, thank you," returned the old woman; "I am used to this, and do not
+care to return. I have been here a long time--how long I do not know;
+for as there is neither daylight nor dark we have no measure of
+time--long, I am sure, very long. The light and noise up yonder would
+now be too much for me. But I wish you well, and, above all, remember
+to dance!"
+
+The new scene of Amelia's labours was a more rocky part of the heath,
+where grey granite boulders served for seats and tables, and sometimes
+for workshops and anvils, as in one place, where a grotesque and grimy
+old dwarf sat forging rivets to mend china and glass. A fire in a
+hollow of the boulder served for a forge, and on the flatter part was
+his anvil. The rocks were covered in all directions with the
+knick-knacks, ornaments, &c., that Amelia had at various times
+destroyed.
+
+"If you please, sir," she said to the dwarf, "I am Amelia."
+
+The dwarf left off blowing at his forge and looked at her.
+
+"Then I wonder you're not ashamed of yourself," said he.
+
+"I am ashamed of myself," said poor Amelia, "very much ashamed. I
+should like to mend these things if I can."
+
+"Well, you can't say more than that," said the dwarf, in a mollified
+tone, for he was a kindly little creature; "bring that china bowl here,
+and I'll show you how to set to work."
+
+Poor Amelia did not get on very fast, but she tried her best. As to the
+dwarf, it was truly wonderful to see how he worked. Things seemed to
+mend themselves at his touch, and he was so proud of his skill, and so
+particular, that he generally did over again the things which Amelia
+had done after her fashion. The first time he gave her a few minutes in
+which to rest and amuse herself, she held out her little skirt, and
+began one of her prettiest dances.
+
+"Rivets and trivets!" shrieked the little man, "how you dance! It is
+charming! I say it is charming! On with you! Fa, la fa! La, fa la! It
+gives me the fidgets in my shoe-points to see you!" and forthwith down
+he jumped, and began capering about.
+
+"I am a good dancer myself," said the little man. "Do you know the
+'Hop, Skip, and a Jump' dance?"
+
+"I do not think I do," said Amelia.
+
+"It is much admired," said the dwarf, "when I dance it;" and he
+thereupon tucked up the little leathern apron in which he worked, and
+performed some curious antics on one leg.
+
+"That is the Hop," he observed, pausing for a moment. "The Skip is
+thus. You throw out your left leg as high and as far as you can, and as
+you drop on the toe of your left foot you fling out the right leg in
+the same manner, and so on. This is the Jump," with which he turned a
+somersault and disappeared from view. When Amelia next saw him he was
+sitting cross-legged on his boulder.
+
+"Good, wasn't it?" he said.
+
+"Wonderful!" Amelia replied.
+
+"Now it's your turn again," said the dwarf.
+
+But Amelia cunningly replied--"I'm afraid I must go on with my work."
+
+"Pshaw!" said the little tinker. "Give me your work. I can do more in a
+minute than you in a month, and better to boot. Now dance again."
+
+"Do you know this?" said Amelia, and she danced a few paces of a polka
+mazurka.
+
+"Admirable!" cried the little man. "Stay"--and he drew an old violin
+from behind the rock; "now dance again, and mark the time well, so that
+I may catch the measure, and then I will accompany you."
+
+Which accordingly he did, improvising a very spirited tune, which had,
+however, the peculiar subdued and weird effect of all the other sounds
+in this strange region.
+
+"The fiddle came from up yonder," said the little man. "It was smashed
+to atoms in the world and thrown away. But, ho, ho, ho! there is
+nothing that I cannot mend, and a mended fiddle is an amended fiddle.
+It improves the tone. Now teach me that dance, and I will patch up all
+the rest of the gimcracks. Is it a bargain?"
+
+"By all means," said Amelia; and she began to explain the dance to the
+best of her ability.
+
+"Charming, charming!" cried the dwarf. "We have no such dance
+ourselves. We only dance hand in hand, and round and round, when we
+dance together. Now I will learn the step, and then I will put my arm
+round your waist and dance with you."
+
+Amelia looked at the dwarf. He was very smutty, and old, and wizened.
+Truly, a queer partner! But "handsome is that handsome does;" and he
+had done her a good turn. So when he had learnt the step, he put his
+arm round Amelia's waist, and they danced together. His shoe-points
+were very much in the way, but otherwise he danced very well.
+
+Then he set to work on the broken ornaments, and they were all very
+soon "as good as new." But they were not kicked up into the world, for,
+as the dwarfs said, they would be sure to break on the road. So they
+kept them and used them; and I fear that no benefit came from the
+little tinker's skill to Amelia's mamma's acquaintance in this matter.
+
+"Have I any other tasks?" Amelia inquired.
+
+"One more," said the dwarfs; and she was led farther on to a smooth
+mossy green, thickly covered with what looked like bits of broken
+thread. One would think it had been a milliner's work-room from the
+first invention of needles and thread.
+
+"What are these?" Amelia asked.
+
+"They are the broken threads of all the conversations you have
+interrupted," was the reply; "and pretty dangerous work it is to dance
+here now, with threads getting round one's shoe-points. Dance a
+hornpipe in a herring-net, and you'll know what it is!"
+
+Amelia began to pick up the threads, but it was tedious work. She had
+cleared a yard or two, and her back was aching terribly, when she heard
+the fiddle and the mazurka behind her; and looking round she saw the
+old dwarf, who was playing away, and making the most hideous grimaces
+as his chin pressed the violin.
+
+"Dance, my lady, dance!" he shouted.
+
+"I do not think I can," said Amelia; "I am so weary with stooping over
+my work."
+
+"Then rest a few minutes," he answered, "and I will play you a jig. A
+jig is a beautiful dance, such life, such spirit! So!"
+
+And he played faster and faster, his arm, his face, his fiddle-bow all
+seemed working together; and as he played, the threads danced
+themselves into three heaps.
+
+"That is not bad, is it?" said the dwarf; "and now for our own dance,"
+and he played the mazurka. "Get the measure well into your head. La, la
+fa la! la, la fa la! So!"
+
+And throwing away his fiddle, he caught Amelia round the waist, and
+they danced as before. After which, she had no difficulty in putting
+the three heaps of thread into a basket.
+
+"Where are these to be kicked to?" asked the young goblins.
+
+"To the four winds of heaven," said the old dwarf. "There are very few
+drawing-room conversations worth putting together a second time. They
+are not like old china bowls."
+
+
+BY MOONLIGHT.
+
+Thus Amelia's tasks were ended; but not a word was said of her return
+home. The dwarfs were now very kind, and made so much of her that it
+was evident that they meant her to remain with them. Amelia often
+cooked for them, and she danced and played with them, and never showed
+a sign of discontent; but her heart ached for home, and when she was
+alone she would bury her face in the flowers and cry for her mother.
+
+One day she overheard the dwarfs in consultation.
+
+"The moon is full to-morrow," said one--("Then I have been a month down
+here," thought Amelia; "it was full moon that night")--"shall we dance
+in the Mary Meads?"
+
+"By all means," said the old tinker dwarf; "and we will take Amelia,
+and dance my dance."
+
+"Is it safe?" said another.
+
+"Look how content she is," said the old dwarf; "and, oh! how she
+dances; my feet tickle at the bare thought."
+
+"The ordinary run of mortals do not see us," continued the objector;
+"but she is visible to any one. And there are men and women who wander
+in the moonlight, and the Mary Meads are near her old home."
+
+"I will make her a hat of touchwood," said the old dwarf, "so that even
+if she is seen it will look like a will-o'-the-wisp bobbing up and
+down. If she does not come, I will not. I must dance my dance. You do
+not know what it is! We two alone move together with a grace which even
+here is remarkable. But when I think that up yonder we shall have
+attendant shadows echoing our movements, I long for the moment to
+arrive."
+
+"So be it," said the others; and Amelia wore the touchwood hat, and
+went up with them to the Mary Meads.
+
+Amelia and the dwarf danced the mazurka, and their shadows, now as
+short as themselves, then long and gigantic, danced beside them. As the
+moon went down, and the shadows lengthened, the dwarf was in raptures.
+
+"When one sees how colossal one's very shadow is," he remarked, "one
+knows one's true worth. You also have a good shadow. We are partners in
+the dance, and I think we will be partners for life. But I have not
+fully considered the matter, so this is not to be regarded as a formal
+proposal." And he continued to dance, singing, "La, la, fa, la,
+la, la, fa, la." It was highly admired.
+
+The Mary Meads lay a little below the house where Amelia's parents
+lived, and once during the night her father, who was watching by the
+sick bed of the stock, looked out of the window.
+
+"How lovely the moonlight is!" he murmured; "but, dear me! there is a
+will-o'-the-wisp yonder. I had no idea the Mary Meads were so damp."
+Then he pulled the blind down and went back into the room.
+
+As for poor Amelia, she found no four-leaved clover, and at cockcrow
+they all went underground.
+
+"We will dance on Hunch Hill to-morrow," said the dwarfs.
+
+All went as before; not a clover plant of any kind did Amelia see, and
+at cockcrow the revel broke up.
+
+On the following night they danced in the hayfield. The old stubble was
+now almost hidden by green clover. There was a grand fairy dance--a
+round dance, which does not mean, as with us, a dance for two partners,
+but a dance where all join hands and dance round and round in a circle
+with appropriate antics. Round they went, faster and faster, the
+pointed shoes now meeting in the centre like the spokes of a wheel, now
+kicked out behind like spikes, and then scamper, caper, hurry! They
+seemed to fly, when suddenly the ring broke at one corner, and nothing
+being stronger than its weakest point, the whole circle were sent
+flying over the field.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the dwarfs, for they are good-humoured little
+folk, and do not mind a tumble.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Amelia, for she had fallen with her fingers on a
+four-leaved clover.
+
+She put it behind her back, for the old tinker dwarf was coming up to
+her, wiping the mud from his face with his leathern apron.
+
+"Now for our dance!" he shrieked. "And I have made up my mind--partners
+now and partners always. You are incomparable. For three hundred years
+I have not met with your equal."
+
+But Amelia held the four-leaved clover above her head, and cried from
+her very heart--"I want to go home!"
+
+The dwarf gave a hideous yell of disappointment, and at this instant
+the stock came tumbling head over heels into the midst, crying--"Oh!
+the pills, the powders, and the draughts! oh, the lotions and
+embrocations! oh, the blisters, the poultices, and the plasters! men
+may well be so short-lived!"
+
+And Amelia found herself in bed in her own home.
+
+
+AT HOME AGAIN.
+
+By the side of Amelia's bed stood a little table, on which were so many
+big bottles of medicine, that Amelia smiled to think of all the stock
+must have had to swallow during the month past. There was an open Bible
+on it too, in which Amelia's mother was reading, whilst tears trickled
+slowly down her pale cheeks. The poor lady looked so thin and ill, so
+worn with sorrow and watching, that Amelia's heart smote her, as if
+some one had given her a sharp blow.
+
+"Mamma, Mamma! Mother, my dear, dear Mother!"
+
+The tender, humble, loving tone of voice was so unlike Amelia's old
+imperious snarl, that her mother hardly recognized it; and when she saw
+Amelia's eyes full of intelligence instead of the delirium of fever,
+and that (though older and thinner and rather pale) she looked
+wonderfully well, the poor worn-out lady could hardly restrain herself
+from falling into hysterics for very joy.
+
+"Dear Mamma, I want to tell you all about it," said Amelia, kissing the
+kind hand that stroked her brow.
+
+But it appeared that the doctor had forbidden conversation; and though
+Amelia knew it would do her no harm, she yielded to her mother's wish
+and lay still and silent.
+
+"Now, my love, it is time to take your medicine."
+
+But Amelia pleaded--"Oh, Mamma, indeed I don't want any medicine. I am
+quite well, and would like to get up."
+
+"Ah, my dear child!" cried her mother, "what I have suffered in
+inducing you to take your medicine, and yet see what good it has done
+you."
+
+"I hope you will never suffer any more from my wilfulness," said
+Amelia; and she swallowed two tablespoonfuls of a mixture labelled "To
+be well shaken before taken," without even a wry face.
+
+Presently the doctor came.
+
+"You're not so very angry at the sight of me to-day, my little lady,
+eh?" he said.
+
+"I have not seen you for a long time," said Amelia; "but I know you
+have been here, attending a stock who looked like me. If your eyes had
+been touched with fairy ointment, however, you would have been aware
+that it was a fairy imp, and a very ugly one, covered with hair. I have
+been living in terror lest it should go back underground in the shape
+of a black cat. However, thanks to the four-leaved clover, and the old
+woman of the heath, I am at home again."
+
+On hearing this rhodomontade, Amelia's mother burst into tears, for she
+thought the poor child was still raving with fever. But the doctor
+smiled pleasantly, and said--"Ay, ay, to be sure," with a little nod,
+as one should say, "We know all about it;" and laid two fingers in a
+casual manner on Amelia's wrist.
+
+"But she is wonderfully better, madam," he said afterwards to her
+mamma; "the brain has been severely tried, but she is marvellously
+improved: in fact, it is an effort of nature, a most favourable effort,
+and we can but assist the rally; we will change the medicine." Which he
+did, and very wisely assisted nature with a bottle of pure water
+flavoured with tincture of roses.
+
+"And it was so very kind of him to give me his directions in poetry,"
+said Amelia's mamma; "for I told him my memory, which is never good,
+seemed going completely, from anxiety, and if I had done anything wrong
+just now, I should never have forgiven myself. And I always found
+poetry easier to remember than prose,"--which puzzled everybody, the
+doctor included, till it appeared that she had ingeniously discovered a
+rhyme in his orders--
+
+     'To be kept cool and quiet,
+     With light nourishing diet.'
+
+Under which treatment Amelia was soon pronounced to be well.
+
+She made another attempt to relate her adventures, but she found that
+not even Nurse would believe in them.
+
+"Why you told me yourself I might meet with the fairies," said Amelia,
+reproachfully.
+
+"So I did, my dear," Nurse replied, "and they say that it's that put it
+into your head. And I'm sure what you say about the dwarfs and all is
+as good as a printed book, though you can't think that ever I would
+have let any dirty clothes store up like that, let alone your frocks,
+my dear. But for pity's sake, Miss Amelia, don't go on about it to your
+mother, for she thinks you'll never get your senses right again, and
+she has fretted enough about you, poor lady; and nursed you night and
+day till she is nigh worn out. And anybody can see you've been ill,
+Miss, you've grown so, and look paler and older like. Well, to be sure,
+as you say, if you'd been washing and working for a month in a place
+without a bit of sun, or a bed to lie on, and scraps to eat, it would
+be enough to do it; and many's the poor child that has to, and gets
+worn and old before her time. But, my dear, whatever you think, give in
+to your mother; you'll never repent giving in to your mother, my dear,
+the longest day you live."
+
+So Amelia kept her own counsel. But she had one confidant.
+
+When her parents brought the stock home on the night of Amelia's visit
+to the haycocks, the bulldog's conduct had been most strange. His usual
+good-humour appeared to have been exchanged for incomprehensible fury,
+and he was with difficulty prevented from flying at the stock, who on
+her part showed an anger and dislike fully equal to his.
+
+Finally the bulldog had been confined to the stable, where he remained
+the whole month, uttering from time to time such howls, with his snub
+nose in the air, that poor Nurse quite gave up hope of Amelia's
+recovery.
+
+"For indeed, my dear, they do say that a howling dog is a sign of
+death, and it was more than I could abear."
+
+But the day after Amelia's return, as Nurse was leaving the room with a
+tray which had carried some of the light nourishing diet ordered by the
+doctor, she was knocked down, tray and all, by the bulldog, who came
+tearing into the room, dragging a chain and dirty rope after him, and
+nearly choked by the desperate efforts which had finally effected his
+escape from the stable. And he jumped straight on to the end of
+Amelia's bed, where he lay, _thudding_ with his tail, and giving
+short whines of ecstasy. And as Amelia begged that he might be left,
+and as it was evident that he would bite any one who tried to take him
+away, he became established as chief nurse. When Amelia's meals were
+brought to the bedside on a tray, he kept a fixed eye on the plates, as
+if to see if her appetite were improving. And he would even take a
+snack himself, with an air of great affability.
+
+And when Amelia told him her story, she could see by his eyes, and his
+nose, and his ears, and his tail, and the way he growled whenever the
+stock was mentioned, that he knew all about it. As, on the other hand,
+he had no difficulty in conveying to her by sympathetic whines the
+sentiment, "Of course I would have helped you if I could; but they tied
+me up, and this disgusting old rope has taken me a month to worry
+through."
+
+So, in spite of the past, Amelia grew up good and gentle, unselfish and
+considerate for others. She was unusually clever, as those who have
+been with the "Little People" are said always to be.
+
+And she became so popular with her mother's acquaintances that they
+said--"We will no longer call her Amelia, for it is a name we learnt to
+dislike, but we will call her Amy, that is to say, 'Beloved.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"And did my godmother's grandmother believe that Amelia had really been
+with the fairies, or did she think it was all fever ravings?"
+
+"That, indeed, she never said, but she always observed that it was a
+pleasant tale with a good moral, which was surely enough for anybody."
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay._
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: The following statement was in the edition from which
+this copy was acquired.]
+
+_The present Series of Mrs. Ewing's Works is the only authorized,
+complete, and uniform Edition published.
+
+It will consist of 18 volumes, Small Crown 8vo, at 2s. 6d. per vol.,
+issued, as far as possible, in chronological order, and these will
+appear at the rate of two volumes every two months, so that the Series
+will be completed within 18 months. The device of the cover was
+specially designed by a Friend of Mrs. Ewing._
+
+_The following is a list of the books included in
+the Series_--
+
+1. MELCHIOR'S DREAM, AND OTHER TALES.
+
+2. MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES.
+
+3. OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY-TALES.
+
+4. A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING.
+
+5. THE BROWNIES, AND OTHER TALES.
+
+6. SIX TO SIXTEEN.
+
+7. LOB-LIE-BY-THE-FIRE, AND OTHER TALES.
+
+8. JAN OF THE WINDMILL.
+
+9. VERSES FOR CHILDREN, AND SONGS.
+
+10. THE PEACE EGG--A CHRISTMAS MUMMING PLAY--HINTS FOR PRIVATE
+THEATRICALS, &c.
+
+11. A GREAT EMERGENCY, AND OTHER TALES.
+
+12. BROTHERS OF PITY, AND OTHER TALES OF BEASTS AND MEN.
+
+13. WE AND THE WORLD, Part I.
+
+14. WE AND THE WORLD, Part II.
+
+15. JACKANAPES--DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOTE--THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE.
+
+16. MARY'S MEADOW, AND OTHER TALES OF FIELDS AND FLOWERS.
+
+17. MISCELLANEA, including The Mystery of the Bloody Hand--Wonder
+Stories--Tales of the Khoja, and other translations.
+
+18. JULIANA HORATIA EWING AND HER BOOKS, with a selection from Mrs.
+Ewing's Letters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
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