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.

There was great rejoicing among the children in the farmhouse of Belle Prairie, one of the most flourishing farms in the beautiful part of Touraine where it was situated. To-morrow would be their mother's birthday, and for as long back as any of the small people could remember "mother's birthday" had always been a holiday.

There was a chemist's shop at Craig Bay, quite a smart chemist's shop, with plate-glass windows and the orthodox "purple" and other coloured jars of Rosamund fame. It was one of the inconsistencies of the place, of which there were several. For Craig Bay was far from being a town; it was not even a big village, and the two or three shops of its early days were of the simplest and quaintest description, emporiums of a little of everything, into which you made your way by descending two or three steps below the level of the rough pavement outside.

La danse au piano est ou tres-charmante ou tres-ennuyeuse, selon le sort. A foggy evening in early December. Fogs are quick to gather and slow to disperse in the heavily laden air surrounding an assemblage of tall chimneys; and the manufacturing town of Wareborough, low-lying and flat, seemed to have a special attraction for them. Unprepossessing at its best, Wareborough was peculiarly so at this season and in such weather; it would, indeed, have been difficult to choose a day on which it could have less favourably impressed a stranger than the one just drawing drearily to a close. There was...

Chrissie Fortescue sat looking at her toes. They were pretty little toes, pink and plump and even. But she was not looking at them in admiration. And indeed this morning they were scarcely as pretty as usual, for they were rapidly becoming blue and crimson, instead of merely pink, and though blue and crimson are charming colours in themselves, they are not seen to advantage on toes.

The school-room at Number 19, Norfolk Terrace, was not, it must be confessed, a particularly attractive room. To begin with, it looked out upon the little garden at the back of the house, and this same little garden was not much to look out upon. The modest, old-fashioned name of "green" would have suited it better.

"Sweet Content." That was my name when I was a very tiny child. It may sound rather conceited to tell this of myself, but when I have told all the story I am now beginning, I don't think, at least I hope, you, whoever you are that read it, won't say I am conceited. Indeed, if I thought any one I knew, or rather that knew me, would be likely to read it and to know that the "I" of it was me, I am not by any means sure that I would write it. But, of course, it is not at all certain that it ever will be printed or seen by any one (except, perhaps, by my children, if, when I am grown up, I am...

I think the best beginning is the morning that grandpapa sent for us to come down to the study. Tib and Gerald, don't think so. They say I should begin by telling our names, and how old we were, and all that-at least, Gerald says so; Tib isn't quite sure. Tib very often isn't quite sure. She has got too grand ideas, and if she were going to write a story, she would make it like poetry, very difficult to understand, and awfully long words, and lots about feelings and sorrows and mysteries. I like mysteries, too-I think they are very interesting, and I have one to tell about, as you will see,...

About a quarter of a century ago, a young English girl-Anastasia Fenning by name-went to pay a visit of a few weeks to friends of her family, whose home was a comfortable old house in the pleasantest part of France. She had been somewhat delicate, and it was thought that the milder climate during a part of the winter might be advantageous to her. It proved so. A month or two saw her completely restored to her usual health and beauty, for she was a very pretty girl; and, strange to say, the visit of a few weeks ended in a sojourn of fully twenty years in what came to be her adopted country,...

IT was getting very near to Christmas-time, and all the boys at Miss Ware's school were talking excitedly about going home for the holidays, of the fun they would have, the presents they would receive on Christmas morning, the tips from Grannies, Uncles, and Aunts, of the pantomimes, the parties, the never-ending joys and pleasures which would be theirs.