Part 3

It was lovely there, she thought, and she roved around looking at everything. On the bed lay Miss Emma's white dress, fresh from the laundry, where its many ruffles, and puffs, and tucks, had been carefully fluted and pressed; "a good half-day's work," Nelly, the ironing-girl, said it was. Also there lay, near at hand, a lovely new garden hat, trimmed with white tarlatan, and a pair of high-heeled French slippers with stockings to match Miss Emma's ribbons. That very afternoon she was going to a garden party, and her dress was laid out, ready for her to put on. She had gone to the garden to pick just the sort of flowers that she needed for a wreath, and in the meantime, Margery had slipped in.

"Oh, my!" she said. "How perfectly splendid!"

Then she set to work; the beautiful tucked skirt and elegant white dress were slipped on, over her rags and dirt; they trailed on the floor, but what of that? Margery thought that more becoming than short dresses. Then she sat down on the floor, and drew on the delicate stockings over her dirty bare legs, and slipped into the French slippers, and perched the garden hat on the back of her naughty head, drew on the gloves, seized the delicate parasol with dirty fingers, and began to parade up and down the room.

Imagine what Miss Emma said when she came in and caught her! Imagine what Mrs. Stuart said when she was summoned to see this dirty little girl, prinked up in borrowed feathers! Do you wonder that she took Margery in hand herself, gave her a bath in haste, burned her dirty clothes, then dressing her in the clean ones, perched her high up on a table near at hand, with orders not to stir until she came back?

There Margery sat, looking somewhat cross, and disappointed; she liked the fine clothes better than these.

But I wanted to tell you what Mrs. Stuart said to her daughter Emma that evening. You must know that Miss Emma grew very cross indeed, over the fact that she could not wear the lovely new stockings, after they had been drawn on Margary's naughty little limbs, and over the horrible discovery that one of her gloves was hopelessly soiled. She wished that poor Margary was back in the cellar, from which she had been dragged, and declared that her mother was very foolish to try to make anything of the little beggar.

"The poor child thought she could cover up her soiled and worthless rags by your beautiful dress," said Mrs. Stuart, with a sigh, "and Emma, dear, mother is sometimes afraid that you are covering a sadly soiled heart with a pretty body, and thinking, like poor foolish Margery, that it is all right, because the soil is covered from human eyes."

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FLORENCE AT HOME.

IT was Sabbath morning, and she was standing before the glass, tying the ends of her lovely, new sash; and Carrie leaned on her elbows and watched her for a minute, then looked at nothing, and wished that she was a little more like Florence. She was pretty, and bright, and everybody admired her. This very morning she was going to do something so nice! In the next square was a new family, just moved in; Florence had already become acquainted with Weston, the fifteen-year-old son, and invited him to attend Sabbath-school, and he had laughed, and declared that he didn't go to Sunday-school very often; but at last had agreed to call, and be shown the way to the church by Florence.

"I don't believe they are people who go to church much," Florence had said, as she drew on her long mitts with a pleased air, "but I shouldn't be surprised if I could get him in the habit of going."

And then Carrie had sighed, and wished that she could do anything; here she had to stay poked in the house this beautiful day, because she had a sore throat; she was always getting sore throats.

"That is all I can do," she told herself drearily, "get a sore throat, and a swelled nose, and red eyes, and stay in the house."

Just then the deer-bell rang, and Master Weston's voice was heard in the hall.

Then was Florence in a flutter. "Dear me! There he is, and it is time we were off. Where is my handkerchief? Carrie, haven't you seen my handkerchief? You certainly must have taken it; I laid it right here. I 'do wish' you would let my things alone! Mamma, have you seen my Quarterly? I thought it was on the table; where 'can' it be! Oh, dear me, mamma, I 'should' think you might help me find it. I 'hate' to be late. Oh, never mind my money, I can take it next Sunday; mamma, 'please' don't keep me waiting to get it; I shan't go at all, if I have to wait much longer. Carrie Marshall, I know you tucked my handkerchief somewhere. Mamma, 'won't you please' let me go this minute? You seem to just want to make me late. I don't care if my hair is too low down; it is just the way all the girls wear it. I wouldn't have it flying around my face in the wild way that Carrie does, for 'anything.' Carrie, hand me that book, quick! I shall go distracted!"

Then I rejoice to tell you that she went out of the room, tripped down the stairs, and was off.

Her invalid mother drew a relieved sigh. "I wish Florence were not such an excitable girl," she said, as she moved about picking up many things that the young miss in her hurry had sent flying hither and thither. "If she were a little more like you, dear, in some things, I should be glad."

Meantime, Florence was tripping along beside her new friend, as bright as the morning itself. Very anxious she was to be a help to him. She was a Christian girl, and wanted to do good. It was not by any means "make believe." She told him about their nice Sunday-school, what a pleasant superintendent they had, and what a "perfectly splendid teacher;" she told him about the young people's prayer-meeting, and asked him to attend; and with great sweetness and skill brought her question around, until she fairly asked him if he were a Christian. And said, earnestly, "I am so sorry," when he told her "no."

Then she said a few sweet, earnest words, that ought to have done him good, and she wondered in her heart why it was that he was simply polite in return, showing not the slightest interest in the subject.

If she could have looked into "his" heart, she would have found just this: "I wonder what this dainty little miss in her pretty hat, and her frizzes would say if she knew I waited for her in the hall, while she left her room door open, and talked to her mother and 'Carrie'—whoever she is. The talk I heard then, and the talk I'm hearing now, don't seem to match. How am I to know which she means?"

Poor Florence! Her thoughtless, disrespectful words at home, that morning, had spoiled the influence of her work abroad! And the worst of it was, she was so used to being careless in this matter, that she didn't suspect it.

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MINNIE LEE AND HER KITTEN.

TRAVELLING from Attica to Rochester in New York, some years since, I changed cars at Avon. A moment after entering the car, a lady and little girl came in and took the seat directly in front of me. The child's face was radiant with joy, as she frequently raised the cover of a little basket on her arm and looked curiously into it. Her sweet little face had no wrinkles of care or unrest.

As I contemplated it, memories of childhood joys and days made me feel like a child again. My own curiosity was excited by her constant looking, and I leaned forward to ascertain the cause of so much happiness.

The little girl, with the quick intuition of childhood, raised the cover of her basket and exposed to view a kitten. I said, "that is a 'beautiful kitten;' what is its name?"

"Daisy," was her quick reply. "I wish you would give me Daisy," I said, gently.

"Oh! 'No, sir;' I can't give you Daisy—I love Dairy so much."

"But, Minnie, I 'want' Daisy, and I will give you a dollar for her."

"Oh! No, sir, I can't sell Daisy."

"Do you love candy, Minnie?"

"Yes, sir, I guess I do."

"Well, then, you can get your basket almost full of candy for a dollar."

"Oh, sir, I love Daisy, more than I do money or candy."

She was so simple and happy, I was confident she had been taught, in the Sunday-school and at home, to love the Saviour. I then asked her if she went to Sunday-school.

"Yes, sir; I go to Sunday-school always."

"Well, Minnie, do you love the dear Saviour?"

"Why, 'yes, sir; I guess I do. Do you love Jesus?'" was her quick retort.

"Yes, my darling, I do, and I'm so glad to know you love the dear Saviour. He is our best Friend; he will go with us if we will let him, all through life, and love us, and keep us, and save us. By-and-by we'll go where Jesus is, and then sin will not hart us any more."

Her little face grew bright with joy, and the light kindled in her eyes. Looking at me steadfastly for a little while, she lifted her basket, and with the sweetest voice said, "Sir! 'You may have Daisy; you may have Daisy.'"

For a moment I hardly knew what reply to make, but said, "No, my darling, I can't take Daisy from you."

The tear came to her eye, as she said, "Why won't you take Daisy?"

"Because you love Daisy more, and will take better care of her than I can."

I trust this beautiful lesson will not be forgotten—at least by the writer. Neither money nor candy could induce the child to give up her kitten; but because I loved her dear Saviour, she loved me more than her kitten, and was willing to give up her idol to please a friend of her Saviour. The atmosphere of heaven is love. Love is the vitalizing power which ripens the soul for heaven. Pride, and anger, and self-will, cannot live where love is found. Love is unselfish. "God is love."

ONLY A SPARK.

IT was to be a tableau party, and among other tableaux, there was to be a bridal scene. Pretty Alice Knowlton had been chosen for the bride, because every one said she had the sweetest face of any of the girls, and looked "perfectly lovely" dressed in white. She did look lovely, with her long bridal veil, and her real orange blossoms from Mr. Silover's conservatory, and all of the bridesmaids, as well as Mary Lewis, who was waiting maid in general, stood around her, and planned and admired, and made little changes here and there to add to the effect.

"We must hurry, girls," one of them had just said. "The people are getting impatient down-stairs, I hear them in the halls asking when we 'are' to have another scene."

Just then came Phebe, the little colored errand girl, to say that Mrs. Lewis said, that the bridal party must stand at the left of the stage instead of the right, because the wind blew the curtains right against the gas light when the door was opened on the right.

"Then we will have to tell the gentleman," said Mary Lewis, "that will change their position entirely; let's tell Charlie Burns, and he will arrange it with the others; run Phebe, and tell Mr. Burns that the ladies want to see him a minute in the south room."

"Botheration!" said gentlemanly Charlie when he received the message. "What do they want now? They've been planning long enough to be really and truly married nine times over. I wonder if I shall have to throw away this cigar? It is one of the best I ever tried."

"Take it along with you, Charlie, they only want to ask some question, and you can come directly back; I wouldn't sacrifice a good cigar to one of their whims."

That was the advice of one of the groomsmen, and Charlie following it, crossed the hall from the gentlemen's dressing-room, puffing a cloud of smoke into Phebe's face. He held the cigar in his hand, while he talked with the ladies, and went to puffing again, the moment the door closed after him.

"Ugh!" said the pretty bride, shuddering. "I wouldn't marry Charlie Burns in real earnest for anything; I hate cigar-smoke."

Well she might! How was it done? Whose fault was it? Is there anybody who can ever give a careful account of the very beginnings of an accident? There was a curious smell, a sudden blaze, a scream from Phebe who had stooped to shake out the train of the bridal dress, a succession of fearful screams that rang through the house, and brought crowds of guests, as well as the gentlemen performers from the dressing-room, and the only thing about it all that was painfully certain, was that the pretty bride was cruelly burned.

It was all talked over a great many times after that; what a sad thing it was that she should have put her beautiful arms into the blaze to try to crush it out, and burned them so that they were shrivelled and useless, and that her limbs were so burned that she could never walk again.

Then people would say in whispers,—"They don't 'know' of course, but it must have been a spark from Charlie Burns' cigar, it couldn't have happened any other way, for she wasn't standing near the gas light, and he was there but a minute before, with a lighted cigar in his hand; they say poor Charlie feels awfully: he has never smoked a cigar since."

Oh dear me! Small good will that do pretty Alice Knowlton. If he had "only" stopped before he smoked that one.

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ROBERT HALL.

IT was a rainy day, and the boys gathered in the hall for their recess talk; I don't know but that was why they assured Robert Hall that it was his turn.

"I spent every bit of my vacation in Cooperstown," he said, stretching himself out on the long bench that was under the west windows.

"Where's Cooperstown?" asked Horace Brooks. "Any of your ancestors own the town, Cooper?"

"Not that I know of," said Eugene; "but I know where it is; nice little town at the head of Otsego lake; there's a one-horse kind of a railroad to take you to it, that connects with the Albany and Susquehanna, or you can go by the Delaware and Lackawanna, as far as Richfield Springs, then take an old-fashioned ride, in a four-horse stage coach, to the head of the lake, and after that as pretty a ride on a lake as can be had anywhere in the United States or out of them, I guess."

"Look here," said Robert Hall, good-humoredly, "am I telling this story, or are you?"

"I was only giving those dumbheads your bearings, my boy; go ahead."

"Well, I went on the one-horse train; that's a good name for it, I declare; a stupider, slower, dustier ride I never took in my life, and I've travelled some; but as you say, the town is lovely when you get there. Queer old town, made up of hotels, mostly; great buildings, large enough, each one of them, to accommodate all the inhabitants as boarders; and full to overflowing, summers."

"What takes people there?" asked Horace Brooks. "Springs?"

"Not a spring; the springs are, as Eugene told you, nine miles away; it's the beauty, I suppose. Men who have travelled say you won't find any better scenery even up the Clyde, or on the Rhine. The lake is just like a sheet of glass, and all along it on either side, lovely landscapes. I don't know much about that sort of thing myself; but my brother paints, you know, and he just raved over it all the time; said it was the finest place for sketching he had found in this country.

"I know the echoes are fine. One night we went out, a party of us, as late as midnight, when the town was still, and rowed up the lake a couple of miles, and then we shouted at the echoes, and the old fellows took up our remarks and repeated them seven times!"

"Whew!" said George Dunlap. "That's a very large story."

"That's just as true as I live," said Robert Hall, rising on one elbow, earnestly. "I heard them; oh, as plainly as you hear me now. We shouted 'Natty Bumppo!' and back they yelled 'Natty Bumppo!'

"Then another fellow, from away up among the rocks on the other side took it up and shouted 'Natty Bumppo!' And so they kept it going, until we had seven distinct voices. I never heard anything like it."

"Where did you get such an outlandish name to call?" asked one of the boys.

"Oh, that's one of Cooper's names, you know; in some of his books; 'he' is the man who has made Cooperstown famous, I suppose. Wherever you go through the town, people are pointing out to you the spot where such a scene was laid, and telling you the incident that suggested such and such a character; and up in their cemetery,—they have a lovely cemetery, terraced up from the lake side, my brother said it was a miniature Greenwood, as fine according to its size, as that,—well there is a statue, just near the entrance, of Leather Stocking and his dog and gun; that's Natty Bumppo. It is erected in memory of Cooper, I suppose; thought 'he' isn't buried there."

"Who's Cooper?" asked Charlie Smythe.

"Well, now, my boy, a fellow as well read in history as you are, ought to know something about him. J. Fenimore Cooper, at your service; born in Burlington, New Jersey, in 1789. Brought up in the wild woods around this same Otsego lake, entered Yale college when he was thirteen, entered the United States Navy at sixteen, resigned his commission, and married when he was twenty-two or so, and went to writing books. You see a fellow who visits Cooperstown has to study up on James Fenimore Cooper."

"Was he a historian?"

"No, a novelist. Why, he wrote thirty-three novels. It is said he is the most popular writer who has ever lived; and his books have been translated into about all the languages in Europe. He used to write sea stories, splendid ones; I read some of them when I was in Cooperstown; and his Natty Bumppo is just a splendid character.

"We went to Cooper's grave in the old cemetery beside the Episcopal church. The people are very proud of Cooper; they talk about him half the time."

"Where is Cooperstown, anyhow? How far from places that everybody knows?" This was Charlie Smythe's question.

"Well, it can't be more than a hundred miles or so, from Albany, New York. I started from Albany in the morning, and reached there about noon I think. We went to the Cooper House; a great splendid hotel,—full of boarders. My brother went to sketch. He has some lovely pictures of Cooperstown; if you'll all come home with me in vacation, I'll show them to you. 'I' don't know how to describe places. It is a pretty village, with a lovely lake and very fine scenery, and that is all I can tell you about it."

"You've told us several things," chorused the boys.

"Yes, and given us an invitation besides," laughed George Dunlap. "I think you've come out ahead, Hall."

"There's one thing I want to know," said Charlie in his slow, meditative way; "does it make people better to read Cooper's novels?"

"I don't know, I am sure," said Robert Hall; "it makes them 'wiser,' I guess; but about the better, I'm not so sure."

"Well," said Charlie, "if I had written thirty-three books, and then died, and people were reading them yet, I should want them to make folks 'better,' as well as wiser."

"That boy Charlie will write books yet, 'I' believe," said Horace, as they went into the schoolroom; "and I shouldn't wonder if it would make folks better to read them."

A LETTER FROM BIRD-LAND.

DEAR RAY:—Do you want a letter all about birds? I have seen so many kinds of birds to-day, and such beautiful ones! Do you remember the fountain in the side yard? It has been made larger, and has stones put all around the edge, and mosses and ferns and pots of flowers are growing everywhere about it.

Every morning the birds come there to bathe; after their bath, they fly up on the trees, and pay their bills by singing sweetest songs. Then they fly away with the news. I think they say to all their friends, "Did you know that, down there in that grass, there is a lovely fountain with everything beautiful around it, and don't you think it is made on purpose for us to take baths in every day?" So the good news spread, and all the birds come flying to the fountain.

There has been a great time among the birds this spring. Some of them must have such large families that they can't take care of them all. The other day I was out walking in the yard, and I saw a beautiful little bird, too young to fly. I was afraid some cat would get it, so I took it in my hands and brought it home. I put it in a bird-cage, and what do you think it ate? Why, worms! I had to dig worms, and put them down its throat. It seemed never to get enough.

Grandma said, "Oh, I wouldn't keep it in a cage; it was made to be free."

I thought so too, so I opened the cage door and let it go. It hopped around on the grass and seemed very happy. All day I watched that no cat came near it.

I had help, too, in taking care of it; every little while a bird would come hopping down, and give it something to eat. Sometimes a robin would come, then a little sparrow, and now and then a chippy-bird. They all seemed to be very kind to it. At last the dark night came, and I could see my little birdie no longer; but I remembered it was said, "Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Heavenly Father knoweth it."

The next morning there was great commotion among the birds; they all came to see about something that troubled them. I went, too; and don't you think my poor little birdie had been taken care of all night, and hopped out in the morning to see about her breakfast, but had been so unfortunate as to go near an old hen who had a dozen little chicks.

The hen knew the birdie was no child of hers, so she began to peck her, and would soon have killed her if I had not appeared. I rescued the poor trembling little thing, put her on a soft bed, and took care of her all day; but at night she died,—the naughty old hen had broken her leg.

I was glad it was a hen who had done the mischief, instead of some little boy to whom God had given a soul, and a mind that could understand what he has said about the birds. But I have heard of little boys who would break up birds' nests, and destroy little families of birds.

Some day I am going to pick out and put together all that God has said in the Bible about birds; for God cares for them.

Your loving auntie,

"JEWEL."

HARVEY IN TROUBLE.

EMILY HARPER went through the hall singing:

"'And for bonnie Annie Laurie, I'd lay me down, and—'

"What on 'earth' is the matter?"

She did not "sing" that last, but said it in a wondering and dismayed tone, as she suddenly opened the library door, and found her brother Harvey lying flat on his face, in a perfect storm of tears.

Harvey "crying," was something new under the sun; he hardly ever stopped whistling long enough to cry.

He wasn't very gracious to Emily. "Keep away," he said, poking out his elbows as though he meant to push her off.

But she wasn't easily pushed off; she shut the library door, and went down on her knees beside the heap on the floor, and said in the most coaxing of sisterly tones, "Tell me all about it, Harvey."

And Harvey told; he couldn't help it. It was bad enough. At twenty minutes of three he had started, a merry, whistling boy, for the post-office, to mail a letter for his father,—an important letter; his father had called after him that if it failed to reach that mail, there would be more than a hundred dollars' loss.

"And he said he would trust me," sobbed poor Harvey.

Well, he knew the mail did not close until fifteen minutes after three, and he knew he could reach the office in five minutes; so he laughed at the idea of failing, and told his father it should be there "sure."

But going around the square, he met Joe Bailey, who told him that their folks had brought home a parrot with them from the city; the cutest fellow, who could whistle, and sing, and say, "Hush up!" And do ever so many funny things, and he had gone down the left side of the square instead of the right, because he knew it would make no difference in the time, and had stopped just about two minutes to look at the parrot.

"And missed the mail!" exclaimed Emily in a horrified tone.