One morning Mary awoke very early. It was in the month of May, and the mornings were light, and sometimes the sun shone in through the windows very brightly. Mary liked these mornings. The sunshine made everything in the room look so pretty; even the nursery furniture, which was no longer very new or fresh, seemed quite shiny and sparkling, as if fairy fingers had been rubbing it up in the night. "I wonder what day it is," thought Mary. It was difficult for her to remember the days, for she was not yet four years old. She was only going to be four soon. Mamma had told her her birthday would...

It is already a long time since I was a little girl. Sometimes, when I look out upon the world and see how many changes have come about, how different many things are from what I can remember them, I could believe that a still longer time had passed since my childhood than is really the case. Sometimes, on the contrary, the remembrance of things that then happened comes over me so very vividly, so very real-ly, that I can scarcely believe myself to be as old as I am. I can remember things in my little girlhood more clearly than many in later years. This makes me hope that the story of some...

The children sat round me in the gloaming. There were several of them; from Madge, dear Madge with her thick fair hair and soft kind grey eyes, down to pretty little Sybil-Gipsy, we called her for fun, -whom you would hardly have guessed, from her brown face and bright dark eyes, to be Madge's "own cousin." They were mostly girls, the big ones at least, which is what one would expect, for it is not often that big boys care much about sitting still, and even less about anything so sentimental as sitting still in the twilight doing nothing. There were two or three little boys however, nice...

"I was four yesterday; when I'm quite old I'll have a cricket-ball made of pure gold; I'll never stand up to show that I'm grown; I'll go at liberty upstairs or down." He trotted upstairs. Perhaps trotting is not quite the right word, but I can't find a better. It wasn't at all like a horse or pony trotting, for he went one foot at a time, right foot first, and when right foot was safely landed on a step, up came left foot and the rest of Baby himself after right foot. It took a good while, but Baby didn't mind. He used to think a good deal while he was going up and down stairs, and it was...

"Hast thou seen that lordly castle, That castle by the sea? Golden and red above it The clouds float gorgeously." Trans. of Uhland: Longfellow. Do you remember Gratian-Gratian Conyfer, the godson of the four winds, the boy who lived at the old farmhouse up among the moors, where these strange beautiful sisters used to meet? Do you remember how full of fancies and stories Gratian's little head was, and how sometimes he put them into words to please Fergus, the lame child he loved so much? The story I am now going to tell you is one of these. I think it was their favourite one. I can not say...

I'm Jack. I've always been Jack, ever since I can remember at least, though I suppose I must have been called 'Baby' for a bit before Serena came. But she's only a year and a half younger than me, and Maud's only a year and a quarter behind her, so I can scarcely remember even Serena being 'Baby'; and Maud's always been so very grown up for her age that you couldn't fancy her anything but 'Maud.' My real name isn't John though, as you might fancy. It's a much queerer name, but there's always been one of it in our family ever since some grandfather or other married a German girl, who called...

"Somewhat back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country seat." Once upon a time in an old town, in an old street, there stood a very old house. Such a house as you could hardly find nowadays, however you searched, for it belonged to a gone-by time-a time now quite passed away. It stood in a street, but yet it was not like a town house, for though the front opened right on to the pavement, the back windows looked out upon a beautiful, quaintly terraced garden, with old trees growing so thick and close together that in summer it was like living on the edge of a forest to be near...

"Yes," said my father, "there is no doubt about it; it is the best thing to do. So that is decided." The "yes" was no expression of agreement with any one but himself. It was simply the emphatic reiteration of the decision he had already arrived at. He folded up the letter he had been reading, and replaced it carefully and methodically in its envelope, then glanced round the breakfast-table with the slightly defiant, slightly deprecating, yet nevertheless wholly good-tempered air which we all knew well-so well that not one of us would have dreamt of wasting time or energy by beating his or...

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 was very glad to get out of the room, I was so dreadfully afraid of beginning to cry myself. I didn't know which I was the...