"No," said the Parian girl, "I don't like that."

"Why?"

"I have private reasons."

"What?"

"No matter."

"I know," said the Cat-made-of-worsted. 'I saw her behind. She's hollow. She's stuffed with lamp-lighters. He! he!" and the Cat-made-of-worsted grinned again.

"I love you just as much," said the steadfast Boy-leaning-against-a-greyhound, " and I don't believe the Cat."

"Go away," said the Parian girl, angrily. "You're all hateful. I won't have you." "Ah!" sighed the Boy-leaning-against-agreyhound.

"Ah!" came another sigh, — it was from the China - girl - rising-out-of-a-pen-wiper, "how I pity you."

"Do you?" said he, eagerly. "Do you? Then I love you. Will you marry me ?" "Ah!" said she; "but "

"She can't!" said the Cat-made-of-worsted. "She can't come to you. She hasn't got any legs. I know it. I'm fifty years old. I never saw them."

"Never mind the Cat," said the Boy-leaningagainst-a-greyhound.

"But I do mind the Cat," said she, weeping. "I haven't. It's all pen-wiper."

"Do I care?" said he.

"She has thoughts," said the bronze Monk"That lasts longer than

reading-a-book.

beauty. And she is solid behind."

"And she has no hinge in her back,"

grinned the Cat - made - of- worsted.

neighbors, let us congratulate them. begin."

66

"Come,

You

Keep out of disagreeable company," said the bronze Monk-reading-a-book.

"That is not congratulation; that is advice," said the Cat-made-of-worsted. "Never mind,

go on, my dear," to the Parian girl. "What! nothing to say? Then I'll say it for you. 'Friends, may your love last as long as your courtship.' Now I'll congratulate you."

But before he could speak, the Audience got up.

"You shall not say a word. It must end happily."

He went to the mantel-piece and took up the China-girl-rising-out-of-a-pen-wiper.

"Why, she has legs after all," said he.

They're false," said the Cat - made - ofworsted. "They're false. I know it. I'm fifty years old. I never saw true ones on her."

The Audience paid no attention, but took up the Boy-leaning-against-a-greyhound.

"Ha!" said the Cat-made - of- worsted,

"Come. I like this.

all hollow. He! he!

He's hollow. They're Neighbor Monk, you're

hollow. He! he!" and the Cat-made-ofworsted never stopped grinning. The Audience lifted the glass-case from him and set it over the Boy-leaning-against-a-greyhound and the China-girl-rising-out-of-a-pen-wiper.

"Be happy!" said he.

"Happy!" said the Cat-made-of-worsted. "Happy!"

Still they were happy.

.THE ENCHANTMENT OF OLD DANIEL.

IN the White Mountain district of New England, high up among the hills, is a little valley, so retired that scarce any but enthusiastic trout-hunters have found it out, and so lonely that one sees here and there deserted farms, whose occupants had not courage to stay in the solitude, but have fled to busier haunts. Mount Osceola looks down upon it, overtopping a company of hills that shoulder each other, and Mad River tumbles headlong out of the valley, rushing into the dark pine woods. Thick forests are all about, and it would seem a gloomy place to enter at nightfall, with only one or two twinkling lights in the one or two houses, and the white road making its way to the little saw-mill, which stands in a niche, carved out of the black woods, at the further end of the valley. Gloomier still would it seem to push by the

mill into the silent woods, following a foot-path little used, and feeling the forest close behind one, as if

shutting out forever the light of day and the voices of men.

Yet, along this lonely path, leaving the mill behind and going deeper into the forest, walked an old man, with a bag on his back, upon the night of the last day of the year. It was Daniel Desmond, a hoary-headed mariner, who for fifty years had followed the sea, being shifted with his battered chest from one vessel to another, sailing north, south, east, and west, and had at last given up the pursuit, mooring his old hulk at the foot of Mount Osceola, in the loneliest spot of the lonely valley of the Mad. For, back from the valley, was a clearing in the forest which had been made long years before by a man who thought it as good and cheap a place as any in which to work and live. He had built a small house there, had planted a field, and put up a fence to keep out the world and the world's stray cattle; but the place grew to be so utterly desolate that at length he fled from it, leaving the house and ploughed field and fences to be inhabited by the squirrels, or perchance by bears and bob-cats. So it had remained for several years. The forest, seeing no one about, began by degrees to resume its claim to the land which had been forcibly taken from it.

First the little trees