CHAPTER X.

MR. STUBBS AT A PARTY.

Toby was about to say that he did not intend to represent the matter other than it really was, when a voice from behind the canvas screen prevented further conversation.

"Sam-u-el, come an' help me carry these things in."

Something very like a smile of satisfaction passed over Signor Castro's face as he heard this, which told him that the time for the feast was very near at hand, and the snake-charmer, as well as the Albino Children, seemed quite as much pleased as did the sword-swallower.

"You will excuse me, ladies and gentlemen," said the skeleton, in an important tone; "I must help Lilly, and then I shall have the pleasure of helping you to some of her cooking, which, if I do say it, that oughtn't, is as good as can be found in this entire country."

Then he too disappeared behind the canvas screen.

Left alone, Toby looked at the ladies, and the ladies looked at him, in perfect silence, while the sword-swallower grimly regarded all, until Mr. Treat appeared bearing on a platter an immense turkey, as nicely browned as any Thanksgiving turkey Toby ever saw. Behind him came his fat wife carrying several dishes, each one of which emitted a most fragrant odor; and as these were placed upon the table, the spirits of the sword-swallower seemed to revive, and he smiled pleasantly, while even the ladies appeared animated by the sight and odor of the good things which they were to be called upon so soon to pass judgment.

Several times did Mr. and Mrs. Treat bustle in and out from behind the screen, and each time they made some addition to that which was upon the table, until Toby began to fear that they would never finish, and the sword-swallower seemed unable to restrain his impatience.

At last the finishing touch had been put to the table, the last dish placed in position, and then, with a certain kind of grace, which no one but a man as thin as Mr. Treat could assume, he advanced to the edge of the platform, and said,

"Ladies and gentlemen, nothing gives me greater pleasure than to invite you all, including Mr. Tyler's friend Stubbs, to the bountiful repast which my Lilly has prepared for--"

At this point, Mr. Treat's speech--for it certainly seemed as if he had commenced to make one--was broken off in a most summary manner. His wife had come up behind him, and, with as much ease as if he had been a child, lifted him from off the floor, and placed him gently in the chair at the head of the table.

"Come right up and get dinner," she said to her guests; "if you had waited until Samuel had finished his speech, everything on the table would have been stone-cold."

The guests proceeded to obey her kindly command, and it is to be regretted that the sword-swallower had no better manners than to jump on to the platform with one bound, and seat himself at the table with the most unseemly haste. The others, and more especially Toby, proceeded in a leisurely and more dignified manner.

A seat had been placed by the side of the one intended for Toby for the accommodation of Mr. Stubbs, who suffered a napkin to be tied under his chin, and generally behaved in a manner that gladdened the heart of his young master.

Mr. Treat cut generous slices from the turkey for each guest, and Mrs. Treat piled their plates high with all sorts of vegetables, complaining, after the manner of housewives generally, that the food was not cooked as she would like to have had it, and declaring that she had had poor luck with everything that morning, when she firmly believed in her heart that her table had never looked better.

After the company had had the edge taken off their appetites, which effect was produced on the sword-swallower only after he had been helped three different times, the conversation began by the fat woman asking Toby how he got along with Mr. Lord.

Toby could not give a very good account of his employer, but he had the good sense not to cast a dampener on a party of pleasure by reciting his own troubles, and he said, evasively,

"I guess I shall get along pretty well, now that I have got so many friends."

Just as he had commenced to speak, the skeleton had put in his mouth a very large piece of turkey--very much larger in proportion than he was himself--and when Toby finished speaking, he started to say something evidently not very complimentary to Mr. Lord. But what it was the company never knew, for just as he opened his mouth to speak, the meat went down the wrong way, his face became a bright purple, and it was quite evident that he was choking.

Toby was alarmed, and sprang from his chair to assist his friend, upsetting Mr. Stubbs from his seat, causing him to scamper up the tent pole, with the napkin still tied around his neck, and to scold in his most vehement manner. Before Toby could reach the skeleton, however, the fat woman had darted toward her lean husband, caught him by one arm, and was pounding his back, by the time Toby got there, so vigorously that the boy was afraid her enormous hand would go through his tissue-paper-like frame.

"I wouldn't," said Toby, in alarm; "you may break him."

"Don't you get frightened," said Mrs. Treat, turning her husband completely over, and still continuing the drumming process. "He's often taken this way; he's such a glutton that he'd try to swallow the turkey whole if he could get it in his mouth, an' he's so thin that 'most anything sticks in his throat."

"I should think you'd break him all up," said Toby, apologetically, as he resumed his seat at the table; "he don't look as if he could stand very much of that sort of thing."

But apparently Mr. Treat could stand very much more than Toby gave him credit for, because at this juncture he stopped coughing, and his face was fast assuming its natural hue.

His attentive wife, seeing that he had ceased struggling, pulled him up above the chair, and sat him down with a force that threatened to snap his very head off.

"There!" she said, as he wheezed a little from the effects of the shock; "now see if you can behave yourself, an' chew your meat as you ought to. One of these days when you're alone you'll try that game, and that'll be the last of you."

"If he'd try to do one of my tricks long enough, he'd get so that there wouldn't hardly anything choke him," the sword-swallower ventured to suggest, mildly, as he wiped a small stream of cranberry-sauce from his chin, and laid a well-polished turkey bone by the side of his plate.

"I'd like to see him try it!" said the fat lady, with just a shade of anger in her voice. Then turning toward her husband she said, emphatically, "Samuel, don't you ever let me catch you swallowing a sword!"

"I won't, my love, I won't; and I will try to chew my meat more," replied the very thin glutton, in a feeble tone.

Toby thought that perhaps the skeleton might keep the first part of that promise, but he was not quite sure about the last.

It required no little coaxing on the part of both Toby and Mrs. Treat to induce Mr. Stubbs to come down from his lofty perch; but the task was accomplished at last, and by the gift of a very large doughnut he was induced to resume his seat at the table.

The time had now come when the duties of a host, in his own peculiar way of viewing them, devolved upon Mr. Treat, and he said, as he pushed his chair back a short distance from the table, and tried to polish the front of his vest with his napkin:

"I don't want this fact lost sight of, because it is an important one. Every one must remember that we have gathered here to meet and become better acquainted with the latest and best addition to this circus, Mr. Toby Tyler."

Poor Toby! As the company all looked directly at him, and Mrs. Treat nodded her enormous head energetically, as if to say that she agreed exactly with her husband, the poor boy's face grew very red, and the squash pie lost its flavor.

"Although Mr. Tyler may not be exactly one of us, owing to the fact that he does not belong to the profession, but is only one of the adjuncts to it, so to speak," continued the skeleton, in a voice which was fast being raised to its highest pitch, "we feel proud, after his exploits at the time of the accident, to have him with us, and gladly welcome him now, through the medium of this little feast prepared by my Lilly."

Here the Albino Children nodded their heads in approval, the sword-swallower gave a little grunt of assent, and thus encouraged, the skeleton proceeded:

"I feel, when I say that we like and admire Mr. Tyler, all present will agree with me, and all would like to hear him say a word for himself."

The skeleton seemed to have expressed the views of all present remarkably well, judging from their expressions of pleasure and assent, and all waited for the honored guest to speak.

Toby knew that he must say something, but he couldn't think of a single thing; he tried over and over again to call to his mind something which he had read as to how people acted and what they said when they were expected to speak at a dinner table, but his thoughts refused to go back for him, and the silence was actually becoming painful. Finally, and by the greatest effort, he managed to say, with a very perceptible stammer, and while his face was growing very red:

"I know I ought to say something to pay for this big dinner that you said was gotten up for me, but I don't know what to say, unless to thank you for it. You see I hain't big enough to say much, as Uncle Dan'l says, I don't amount to very much 'cept for eatin', an' I guess he's right. You're all real good to me, an' when I get to be a man, I'll try to do as much for you."

Toby had arisen to his feet when he began to make his speech, and while he was speaking, Mr. Stubbs had crawled over into his chair. When he finished, he sat down again without looking behind him, and of course sat plump on the monkey. There was a loud outcry from Mr. Stubbs, a little frightened noise from Toby, an instant's scrambling, and then boy, monkey, and chair tumbled off the platform, landing on the ground in an indescribable mass, from which the monkey extricated himself more quickly than Toby could, and again took refuge on the top of the tent pole.

Of course all the guests ran to Toby's assistance; and while the fat woman poked him all over to see that none of his bones were broken, the skeleton brushed the dirt from his clothes.

All this time the monkey screamed, yelled, and danced around on the tent pole and ropes as if his feelings had received a shock from which he could never recover.

"I didn't mean to end it up that way, but it was Mr. Stubbs's fault," said Toby, as soon as quiet had been restored, and the guests, with the exception of the monkey, were seated at the table once more.

"Of course you didn't," said Mrs. Treat, in a kindly tone; "but don't you feel bad about it one bit, for you ought to thank your lucky stars that you didn't break any of your bones."

"I s'pose I had," said Toby, soberly, as he looked back at the scene of his disaster, and then up at the chattering monkey that had caused all the trouble.

Shortly after this, Mr. Stubbs having again been coaxed down from his lofty position, Toby took his departure, promising to call as often during the week as he could get away from his exacting employers.

Just outside the tent he met old Ben, who said, as he showed signs of indulging in another of his internal laughing spells,

"Hello! has the skeleton an' his lily of a wife been givin' a blow-out to you too?"

"They invited me in there to dinner," said Toby, modestly.

"Of course they did, of course they did," replied Ben, with a chuckle; "they carries a cookin'-stove along with 'em, so's they can give these little spreads whenever we stay over a day in a place. Oh, I've been there!"

"And did they ask you to make a speech?"

"Of course. Did they try it on you?"

"Yes," said Toby, mournfully, "an' I tumbled off the platform when I got through."

"I didn't do exactly that," replied Ben, thoughtfully; "but I s'pose you got too much steam on, seein' 's how it was likely your first speech. Now you'd better go into the tent an' try to get a little sleep, 'cause we've got a long ride to-night over a rough road, an' you won't get more'n a cat-nap all night."

"But where are you going?" asked Toby, as he shifted Mr. Stubbs over to his other shoulder, preparatory to following his friend's advice.

"I'm goin' to church," said Ben, and then Toby noticed for the first time that the old driver had made some attempt at dressing up. "I've been with the circus, man an' boy, for nigh to forty years, an' I allus go to meetin' once on Sunday. It's somethin' I promised my old mother I would do, an' I hain't broke my promise yet."

"Why don't you take me with you?" asked Toby, wistfully, as he thought of the little church on the hill at home, and wished--oh, so earnestly!--that he was there then, even at the risk of being thumped on the head with Uncle Daniel's book.

"If I'd seen you this mornin', I would," said Ben; "but now you must try to bottle up some sleep agin to-night, an' next Sunday I'll take you."

With these words old Ben started off, and Toby proceeded to carry out his wishes, although he rather doubted the possibility of "bottling up" any sleep that afternoon.

He lay down on the top of the wagon, after having put Mr. Stubbs inside with the others of his tribe, and in a very few moments the boy was sound asleep, dreaming of a dinner party at which Mr. Stubbs made a speech, and he scampered up and down the tent pole.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

STANLEY'S GREAT JOURNEY.

BY WILLIAM L. ALDEN.

The great journey of Mr. Henry M. Stanley, in which he crossed the continent of Africa, was both the longest and the most important journey that any African traveller has made. Both Dr. Livingstone and Commander Cameron had already crossed Africa, but they crossed it by a more southerly and much shorter path than that taken by the American traveller. They suffered a great deal from fever and weariness and the terrible heat; but Mr. Stanley, in addition to these miseries, was compelled to fight his way through tribe after tribe of blood-thirsty cannibals, and to follow the course of a dangerous river, full of rapids, in a frail boat. It is almost a miracle that he ever lived to reach the civilized world; and had he not been as prudent and skillful as he was brave and persevering, he never would have finished his journey.

Mr. Stanley started from Zanzibar--a town on the east coast of Africa--in November, 1874, with three young Englishmen and three hundred and fifty-three native Africans. Only a few of these were armed with rifles, for most of them were porters. In Africa, calico and beads are used for money, and as a traveller must have plenty of these with him, he has to employ a great many porters. You will ask why he does not have horses or oxen to carry his goods. The reason is that there is an insect in Africa, called the tsetse, the bite of which kills all animals of burden, so that travellers have to hire natives to carry all their property on their heads.

Stanley marched first to Lake Victoria--a lake discovered by Captain Speke in 1858, and which is one of the sources of the Nile. After sailing all around this lake in a boat which was made for him in England, and was built so that it could be taken apart and carried by the porters, he went to another great lake, discovered by Captain Burton in 1856, and called Lake Tanganyika. This he also circumnavigated in his boat, and discovered that it had no outlet. West of Lake Tanganyika Dr. Livingstone had discovered a great river, which he thought might be the Congo. Commander Cameron had also seen this river, and both of them wanted to descend it to its mouth, but they thought it would be impossible to make their way through the fierce savages who live on its banks.

When Stanley reached this great river, two of the young Englishmen that had started with him, Fred Barton and Edward Pocock, had already died of the deadly African fever, and so many of his other men had died, or deserted, or been killed, that he had only one white man, Frank Pocock, and one hundred and forty-nine natives--some of whom were women--who were willing to join him in a voyage down the river. He bought a number of canoes, and with these and his English boat, the _Lady Alice_, began his voyage. He had to fight almost constant battles with the natives, and the great river, with its swift current, that swept many of his canoes over the rapids, was almost as dangerous as the savages. In one of these rapids poor Frank Pocock was drowned, and when, after suffering the most terrible hardships, Stanley reached the Portuguese settlement near the mouth of the Congo, he had only one hundred and fifteen followers left, and these, like himself, were nearly dead from starvation, disease, and hardship.

One day Mr. Stanley was sailing on Lake Victoria in the _Lady Alice_ with eleven natives, and being out of provisions, and very hungry, they rowed toward the shore, intending to land and buy food. About two hundred savages, armed with spears and bows and arrows, gathered to meet them. Stanley's men called to them, and told them they were friends, and wanted to buy food. The savages seemed to be peaceful, but as soon as the boat touched the shore, they seized it, and dragged it twenty yards up the beach, with Mr. Stanley sitting in it.

Then they swarmed around him, yelling and flourishing their clubs and spears. Many of them took aim at Stanley with their arrows; but he told his men to speak gently to them, and to convince them that they were friends. They demanded calico and beads, and Stanley gave them all they asked. Then they seized the boat's oars, and carried them off; but still the traveller made no resistance. The crowd constantly increased, until there were at least three hundred of the savages, all armed and painted for battle. They abused Stanley and his men, telling them they were cowards, and that they were going to kill them, and twenty times Mr. Stanley thought his last moment had come. Finally he told one of his men to go a little distance away from the boat, and to engage the attention of the savages, while the rest of them should take hold of the boat on each side, and at the word of command try to launch it. They did so; but the savages saw the boat moving, and rushed to the water's edge just as she glided into the lake. The man who had tried to attract the attention of the wretches while the boat was launched sprang into the water after her, and a savage was just on the point of spearing him, when Stanley fired, and saved his follower's life by shooting the spear-man. The men now climbed into the boat, and tearing up the bottom boards, tried to paddle with them away from the shore, while Stanley threatened the savages with his gun, and for a few moments kept them at a distance. They soon plucked up courage, however, and springing into their canoes, paddled after the _Lady Alice_. There was no escape except by driving the enemy back, and Mr. Stanley, with four shots from his elephant rifle, loaded with explosive balls, sunk two of the canoes, and killed five men, after which the others retreated, and the _Lady Alice_, after paddling all night, and driving before a heavy gale all the next day and all the next night, in imminent peril of sinking, brought her exhausted crew to an uninhabited island, seventy-six hours after the fight. Instead of showing a hard-hearted readiness to fire on the poor Africans, in this, as in all his other fights, Stanley showed the most wonderful self-control, and only used his rifle when he had to choose between being killed, together with his men, and firing on his brutal foes.

The greater part of Stanley's battles were fought while descending the Congo. Sometimes the natives came out in canoes and attacked him on the river, and sometimes they attacked him while he was camping on the shore. Once fifty-four canoes, carrying at least two thousand men, were successfully beaten off in a sharp battle. At night the camp had to be protected by a stockade made of brush-wood; and often the tired explorer, after paddling all day, had to watch all night to repel the constant attacks of the enemy. Sometimes, when they were dragging the canoes through the forest around the rapids, the woods would suddenly be alive with cannibals who had been lying in ambush. Armed with clubs and spears and poisoned arrows, they would rush on Stanley and his handful of men, shouting that they would eat the strangers for dinner. But whether there were a hundred or a thousand of them, Stanley always managed to drive them back. It was his cool courage, quite as much as the rifles of his men, which gave him the victory. Had he not been a man born to command, he could never have inspired his men with courage to face such swarms of savages; and had he not been as brave a man as ever lived, he could never have fought hand to hand with a score of hungry cannibals all at once, and driven them back in terror of the dauntless white man.

Mr. Stanley has furnished a splendid example of what patience, perseverance, and courage can accomplish in the face of the most formidable obstacles, and he will always be celebrated as one of the greatest explorers the world has ever known.

A STRANGE VALENTINE.

BY KATE McD. R.

"When _will_ you be ready to go down street for our valentines, Lilla?" asked Margie Goold, as she stood listlessly at the window watching the passers-by. "You said you'd go half an hour ago, and I've been waiting ever since."

But Lilla was deep in her arithmetic, and apparently unconscious that Margie had asked any question, until suddenly she jumped up, and throwing some papers well covered with figures into the grate, exclaimed,

"I would have been ready long ago had it not been for that horrid D."

"Why, Lilla Goold, you ought to be ashamed to call D. _horrid_," cried little Fay, indignantly, from her seat on the rug, where she was giving Fido a lesson in making believe dead.

"Yes, indeed, you ought," seconded Margie. "Mamma was saying just a day or two ago that we must respect D., and remember what a faithful nurse she was to all of us. And you, of all others, to call her names, when she sat up night after night with you when you were so ill! And anyway she has only come to bring the clothes home, and will probably go right away again, as she always does."

Lilla interrupted Margie's praise of their old nurse by throwing herself on the sofa and laughing immoderately.

Margie looked indignant, Fay puzzled, while Fido came quickly to life and barked vociferously.

"There! even Fido resents having D. so talked about," cried Margie, triumphantly.

"I never meant _Dinah_ at all," laughingly protested Lilla. "She is a dear old soul. I mean the D in my example, who is digging a ditch with A, B, and C, and I'm to find out how long it takes them, and then how much faster D works than A. I get along finely until D appears, and then I don't know how to go on."

"Oh," said Margie, in a relieved tone; "but wasn't it strange that just as you said something about D, old nurse D. came across the street with the washing, and of course I thought you meant her. Here she comes out again, and the poor thing can hardly stand, it is so slippery. Mamma"--as Mrs. Goold entered the room--"why does D. bring the clothes still? I should think Rosa would offer to come with them, instead of sending her old aunt out. Why, just see! she can scarcely stand."

"Rosa does not send her, dearie," said Mrs. Goold, joining her little girls at the window, "for she told me she thought it dangerous for Dinah to be out in the winter so unprepared as she is, but that Dinah _persists_ in coming, no matter what the weather, that she may inquire _herself_ about 'de chillen.'"

"Good old D.," said Fay, using the name that Lilla--the first baby--had given Dinah, and both the others had adopted in their turn. "Why, mamma," continued the little one, straining her eyes to catch a glimpse of Dinah's departing figure, "how will she ever get home? There! good! Rosa has met her. I'm so glad!"

"D. needs a pair of that new kind of rubbers that we stopped to look at to-day in Mr. Brooks's store window," said Lilla, putting away her books, "and then she could get along finely."

"Let's get her a pair," exclaimed the wide-awake Margie, "when we go for our valentines. Will you give us the money, mamma? I think the price is a dollar."

"I'll give twenty-five cents toward it," answered Mrs. Goold, as she laid some money on the table, and left the room.

"Of course mamma means by _that_ that we ought to give the rest. What do you say to getting the rubbers, instead of valentines for Lou and Jess?" suggested Margie.

"Then they won't send us any. They never do, you know, until they get ours."

"That's so; and Madge Hammond proposed to-day that all the girls bring their valentines to school Monday, and we want to have as many as we possibly can, and here"--spreading them out upon the table as she spoke--"so far I've got only three."

Fay's brown eyes were opening wider and wider as she listened. "Papa gave me a lot of pennies to send a vantaline to Cousin Daisy, but I'd rather send a rubber vantaline to Dinah."

"You little darling!" cried Lilla, kissing her, "you're a lesson to us." Then, turning to Margie: "I guess if baby can give _her_ money, _we_ can. Let's go right down for the rubbers, and send them in valentine style, as Fay proposes. Yes, of course Fay shall go too," she added, noticing the large eyes turned questioningly to hers.

About an hour later they rushed into the sitting-room, exclaiming, "We've got them, and they're beauties--lined throughout, and come over the ankles."

"How did you know the size?" inquired Mrs. Goold, after she had duly admired them.

"The most fortunate thing in the world," answered Margie, "was our meeting Rosa just as we were going into the store, and after she had promised not to breathe a syllable to D., we told her the plan, took her into the store with us, and she selected the rubbers."

And as Margie paused, Lilla went on: "Rosa says they're just the thing, and she's coming over to-night to tell us how D. likes them. Mr. Brooks waited on us himself at first, and looked crosser than a bear. He had his green glasses on, and stared at us so hard that I was glad when a gentleman came in to see him, and one of the clerks took his place."

"And the clerk," put in Margie, "kept telling us that the rubbers were the latest thing in the market, and I laughed right out at the thought of D.'s knowing or caring whether they were in style."

"Then," resumed Lilla, "as we were leaving the store, Mr. Brooks stepped forward, and said, in the sternest tone, to Rosa--you know she used to work at his house--'I wish you would wait a few moments, Rosa; I desire to speak to you;' so we left her there."

It was a picture not soon to be forgotten that met Mr. Goold's gaze as he came upon the little group in the cozy sitting-room, lighted only by the bright coals in the grate.

"Still talking valentines?" he asked, kissing mamma, and lifting Fay from her arms to his own. Then sitting down, and putting her on his knee, he questioned, "Well, how about them?"

Lilla and Margie then began an account of buying Dinah's rubber shoes, and when they were brought for his inspection, to their great delight he dropped a piece of money in each.

"Now Rosa will have a s'prise too," cried Fay, clapping her hands.

Supper over, the sleigh came round, and soon the package was left at Dinah's door, and the children were home again.

"Now I must try that example once more," announced Lilla, as she bent over her book. Then, after a few moments' study, "Oh! I see--I have it!" she cried, triumphantly: "D works just twice as fast as A."

"D must have worn a pair of stylish rubbers," laughed Margie. "Probably A couldn't stand as firmly in the ditch."

While they were laughing at Margie's explanation, Jane came to the door with some valentines, which excited the usual amount of wonderment.

"I had no idea we'd get so many," said Lilla, in a satisfied, tone; "I don't believe Madge can be ahead of us."

Another knock, and Rosa presented herself with a "Can I come in?" which showed all her beautiful teeth. The children made a rush for the young colored girl, and overwhelmed her with questions.

"Oh, chillen, she _was_ so pleased, and so berry thankful! She wanted to come right over and show dem to you all, but I 'suaded her to wait till mornin'." And then Rosa went on to say what a perfect fit the rubbers were, and how Dinah was singing around, as happy as could be, and in a hurry for morning, that she might wear them.

"Does she s'pect who sent 'em?" asked Fay.

"I's 'fraid she does, honey, 'cause when she went to try dem on, some money fell out, an' I said: 'Dem careless chillen! I's feared Miss Goold's bringin' dem up to tink money grows on bushes'; an' Aunt Dinah said, 'Did dey gib 'em?' so I jest said, 'I'll take de money dar fust, anyway, an' see,'" and Rosa held up two silver pieces, saying, "Who lost, I's found?"

"Why, Rosa, it's your s'prise," explained Fay--"your vantaline," at which Rosa's astonishment and delight knew no bounds.

"Altogether it's been the nicest Valentine's Day we've ever had," Lilla and Margie agreed, as they were getting ready for bed, and Fay said, drowsily, from her crib, "I shouldn't think you'd care, _now_, if Madge Hammond"--and then the words came slower and slower, "should bring--twenty--rubbers--in--a--ditch."

Jane came into the nursery next morning, saying, "There is a valentine at each of your plates this morning;" but not another word would she say about them.

You may be sure no one was late to breakfast _that_ morning, and I wish you could have seen how three expectant faces lit up as each spied a tiny basket of flowers at her plate.

"When _did_ they come?" "Who _could_ have sent them?" "Will they keep fresh till Monday?"

"Wait a minute," said papa, feeling for his pencil. "I must write down all these questions. Now I'm ready for number four."

"Don't tease us, papa," pleaded Margie. "Just answer what we've asked already."

"Agreed: firstly, they came last night, and mamma thought it best not to wake you; secondly, Mr. Brooks sent them."

"Mr. Brooks!" all in chorus.

"Yes, he's a kind of bear, I heard yesterday," said papa.

Lilla looked ashamed.

"Thirdly, they _will_ keep till Monday, if good care is taken."

"Then we can carry them to school," joyfully exclaimed Lilla.

"And what do you think of Mr. Brooks now?" asked mamma.

"Why, I don't know _what_ to think, I'm so surprised. Are you certain they're from him?"

"I judge so, from what Rosa told me last night. Mr. Brooks asked her who you were, and when she told him you were going to send the rubbers as a valentine to Dinah, he said, 'I believe I'll write down their names: "One good turn deserves another."' And more than that, Rosa says he is one of the kindest men she ever knew, and far from being as cross as he looks."

"I think," said Lilla, "I shall remember after this lesson to 'judge not by appearances.'"

"I guess I'll keep account of all the proverbs about Mr. Brooks," said Margie, and reaching mischievously for papa's pencil, she wrote:

"Before you say 'tis chill December, Know all the signs of mild September."

Said Blackbird to Miss Yellow-Bird: "How bright the sun does shine! And you look sweet. Oh, pray consent To be my Valentine!" "I really can't," said Yellow-Bird; "I don't to you incline; I am too blonde--indeed, I am-- To be your Valentine."

[Begun in HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE No. 66, February 1.]

PHIL'S FAIRIES.

BY MRS. W. J. HAYS,

AUTHOR OF "PRINCESS IDLEWAYS," ETC.