"You have kept us waiting an age Come along, Bet, do." "She ain't going to funk it, surely " "No, no, not she, -she's a good 'un, Bet is, -come along, Bet. Joe Wilkins is waiting for us round the corner, and he says Sam is to be there, and Jimmy, and Hester Wright: do come along, now." "Will Hester Wright sing?" suddenly demanded the girl who was being assailed by all these remarks.

In a poor part of London, but not in the very poorest part-two children sat on a certain autumn evening, side by side on a doorstep. The eldest might have been ten, the youngest eight. The eldest was a girl, the youngest a boy. Drawn up in front of these children, looking into their little faces with hungry, loving, pathetic eyes, lay a mongrel dog.

The Squire's little daughter rode her pony down the avenue. She stopped for a moment at the gate, and the children at the other side could get a good view of her. There were four children, and they pressed together and nudged each other, and took in the small erect figure, and her sturdy pony, with open eyes and lips slightly apart.

There are all kinds of first things one can look back upon; I mean by that the first things of all. There is the little toddling journey across the floor, with father's arms stretched out to help one, and mother's smile to greet one when the adventurous journey is over. And there are other baby things, of course. Then there come the big things which one can never forget.

Brenda and Florence had both finished their school life. No pains had been spared to render them up to date in every particular. They had gone through the usual curriculum of a girl's education. Brenda was a little cleverer than Florence and had perhaps dived deeper into the heart of things, but Florence was the prettier of the two.

The girls stood in a cluster round Miss Aldworth. They surrounded her to right and left, both before and behind. She was a tall, dark-eyed, grave looking girl herself; her age was about twenty. The girls were schoolgirls; they were none of them more than fifteen years of age. They adored Marcia Aldworth; she was the favourite teacher in the school. She was going away to England suddenly, her mother was very ill, and she might not return. The girls all spoke to her in her native tongue. They belonged to several nationalities; some German, some French, some Dutch, some Hungarian; there was a...

There was, of course, the Lower Glen, which consisted of boggy places and endless mists in winter, and a small uninteresting village, where the barest necessaries of life could be bought, and where the folks were all of the humbler class, well-meaning, hard-working, but, alas poor of the poor. When all was said and done, the Lower Glen was a poor place, meant for poor people.

"And then," said Rachel, throwing up her hands and raising her eyebrows-"and then, when they got into the heart of the forest itself, just where the shade was greenest and the trees thickest, they saw the lady coming to meet them. She, too, was all in green, and she came on and on, and--"

I was born a month after my father's death, and my mother called me after him. His name was John Westenra Wickham, but I was Westenra Wickham alone. It was a strange name for a girl, and as I grew up people used to comment on it. Mother loved it very much, and always pronounced it slowly. She was devoted to father, and never spoke of him as most people do of their dead, but as if he were still living, and close to her and to me. When a very little child, my greatest treat was to sit on her knee and listen to wonderful stories of my brave and gallant father.

It was a very sunny June day, and a girl was pacing up and down a sheltered path in an old-fashioned garden. She walked slowly along the narrow graveled walk, now and then glancing at the carefully trimmed flowers of an elaborate ribbon border at her right, and stopping for an instant to note the promise of fruit on some well-laden peach and pear-trees. The hot sun was pouring down almost vertical rays on her uncovered head, but she was either impervious to its power, or, like a salamander, she rejoiced in its fierce noonday heat.