The blinds had been drawn down for some time in the back parlour behind Mr. Fairchild's shop in Pier Street, the principal street in the little town of Seacove. And the gas was lighted, though it was not turned up very high. It was a great thing to have gas; it had not been known at Seacove till recently. For the time of which I am writing is now a good many years ago, thirty or forty at least.

'Then good morning, Mrs. Perry. It all promises very nicely, I think. You may depend upon our taking good care of Ruth, and doing our best to train her well. Naylor takes great pride in her training. You will tell Ruth what I say, and impress upon her those two or three broad rules, and if she attends to those, it will be all right.'

His real name was Fabian. But he was never called anything but Carrots. There were six of them. Jack, Cecil, Louise, Maurice, commonly called Mott, Floss, dear, dear Floss, whom he loved best of all, a long way the best of all, and lastly Carrots.

GREAT many years ago there dwelt in a city of the East, of which you have never heard the name, a wise and holy man. He was highly esteemed by his fellow citizens, for he was kind and benevolent, never refusing good counsel to those in earnest to profit by it, so that by degrees the fame of his sagacity spread far and wide, and many came from great distances to consult him.

Mamma sat quite quietly in her favourite corner, on the sofa in the drawing-room, all the time papa was speaking. I think, or I thought afterwards, that she was crying a little, though that isn't her way at all. Dods didn't think so, for I asked him, when we were by ourselves. She did not speak any way, except just to whisper to me when I ran up to kiss her before we went out, 'We will have a good talk about it all afterwards, darling. Run out now with Geordie.'

I do not think you could anywhere have found a happier little boy than Ferdy Ross when he woke on the morning of his ninth birthday. He was always-at least almost always-happy, and he had good reason for being so. He had everything that children need to make life bright and joyous: kind parents, a dear sister, a pretty home, and, best of all, a loving, trusting, sunshiny nature, which made it easy for him to be very happy and loving, and made it easy too for others to love him in return and to feel pleasure in being with him. But to-day, his birthday, the fourteenth of May, he was very...

No, Kathie, I don't believe you care one bit; I really don't, ' said Neville reproachfully. Kathie was seated as she loved to be-on the edge of a rather high table. Her skirts were short and her legs were long; from her present elevation she could swing the latter about delightfully. She gave them an extra energetic fling before she replied to her brother, and then, trying her best to look concerned and distressed, and only succeeding in giving to her funny little face an expression of comical demureness, she turned to Neville,

"O, it is trouble very bad, Which causes us to weep; All last night long we were so sad, Not one of us could sleep." Sometimes they called us all three just "the boys." But I don't think that was fair. I may have been rather a tomboy, but I wasn't quite so bad as to be called a "boy." I was nine then- I mean I was nine at the beginning of the time I am going to tell you about, and now I am fourteen. Afterwards, I will tell you what put it into my head to write it down. If I told you now you wouldn't understand-at least not without my telling you things all out of their places-ends at the...

When I was a little girl, which is now a good many years ago, there came to spend some time with us a cousin who had been brought up in Germany. She was almost grown-up-to me, a child of six or seven, she seemed quite grown-up; in reality, she was, I suppose, about fifteen or sixteen. She was a bright, kind, good-natured girl, very anxious to please and amuse her little English cousins, especially me, as I was the only girl. But she had not had much to do with small children; above all, delicate children, and she was so strong and hearty herself that she did not understand anything about...

I could fancy it was only yesterday That first time I saw them. And to think how many years ago it is really And how many times I have told the story-or, perhaps, I should say the stories, for after all it is only a string of simple day-by-day events I have to tell, though to me and to the children about me they seem so interesting and, in some ways, I think I may say, rather out of the common.