not take the children there, so they were to come and stay at the Park for a month or too, the while.

I thought this would be very nice, and I began to ask all sorts of questions about Harry and Lottie, and Alick and Murray, and Bertie and the baby. How funny it would seem when the nursery was so full! I thought the day would never come. But it did. The carriage was sent off to the station, and in due time it came back, quite full to overflowing with children!

There was a good deal of shyness at first, when we all stood in a row, and looked at each other, answering grandmamma's questions seriously, and feeling very odd. But that was only the first evening. Next day we were quite happy and comfortable, had a very merry breakfast, and then a delightful ramble about the gardens and orchards. Of course, I was only one of the little ones, coming in between Alick and Murray, feeling very small beside Lottie and Harry. Yet we were all very good friends, and Lottie soon told me that she thought it would be very nice to have a girl to talk to, and not only boys. This remark pleased me, though when I thought of Bobbie, it sounded rather strange. Indeed, I am not sure that I was not a little too fond of boys' play.

I remember feeling rather disappointed one day when she said to me in the garden—

"Sissy, let's come and have a nice quiet walk together, and leave the boys to play by themselves."

GOING TO THE WARS.

Now, three of the boys were just preparing for a military march, one with a bright flag, another with a trumpet, and another with a sword-stick, so-called; and there was a most refreshing prospect of shouting, stamping, and huzzahs! Do you wonder that I turned away rather unwillingly?

However, Lottie's confidences soon made up for it all. Such beautiful stories Lottie could tell! When she began to talk about the Alps, and the blue lake and the mountain flowers, I thought it seemed almost as good as my hymns and verses. I know I looked up at her with eyes full of admiration, and when she put her arms round me, and gave me a loving kiss, I thought I had never been so happy before.

And then she listened to all I had to tell her about Bobbie, and baby Willie, and Rosalinda, and gave me her advice about dressing Rosalinda like the Queen.

My letters, too, she read, and said they were very nice, which made me love mamma for writing them all the more. And she showed me her own letter that had just come across the sea, with its foreign stamps and thin paper. Quite a nice talk it was altogether, and we were ever so sorry when we were called in to dinner.

My boy-cousins were very polite to me at first, and hardly seemed to know what to make of me. Harry was a little too patronizing, called me "a mite of a thing," and played tricks upon me in a gentle way. But then he was not often with us. He had not been a night in the house before he had quite determined to be a sailor like Uncle Hugh, so it followed, as a matter of course, that he must be always with him.

Force of habit, however, made him confide all his plans and thoughts to Lottie, so that our private talks in the shrubbery were often interrupted by his merry voice. Then he would throw himself down among the grass and periwinkles, and tell us all about his future ship. This usually ended in Lottie's being carried off to make sails or flags for his new craft. Then, being left to myself, I soon ran off to my other cousins, nothing loath to have a game of romps with them.

Alick seemed likely to be my special friend. What a funny little fellow he must have been, though I did not think so then! Jane called him a little dandy, much to his displeasure; yet I am afraid his friendship was likely to increase my childish vanity. He was so fond of decking me with flowers, making wreaths for me, and then looking at me, and sometimes comparing my hair or eyes with Lottie's; and his look of vexation if my face was dirty or my pinafore torn, often comes back to me even now when I feel untidy in any way.

One afternoon, when Alick and I and one of the other boys were alone, it suddenly came into our wise little heads that we would play at going to a party. What vast preparations we made! What pains the boys took to tie up my sleeves with some bright ribbon meant for Harry's flags! How cleverly we succeeded in carrying off a hair-brush, and what a long time it took to decide how the boys' hair and ties should be arranged! And then came the flowers, my wreath, and the bouquet to be carried for me by one of my gentlemen.

We were all ready, I remember, and I was just taking Alick's arm, and we had all put on our best airs and graces for a solemn entrance to the supposed ball-room, when, all of a sudden, who should come round the corner but Uncle Hugh and Harry!

GOING TO A PARTY.

Oh, those bursts of laughter pealing out again and again! Oh, the writhings and twistings of Uncle Hugh in his excessive mirth! Would they ever stop laughing? Even now my cheeks almost tingle with those painful blushes, and my heart beats with that frightened shame!

And yet it was for Alick that I was chiefly troubled, as I saw him fling down the flowers and run, while Harry, shouting "conceited young jackanapes," pursued him at full speed. I had never seen such rough play or heard such mocking laughter, and I burst into tears, sobbing out my trouble on my uncle's shoulder as he carried me off and laughingly soothed me, pressing the prickly wreath all the while against my head.

It was a long time before our adventure was forgotten. Harry's merry jokes brought the colour over and over again to my face, and the angry words to Alick's lips. But we were both cured, certainly, for the time, of any love of display or dandyism!

VI

WHAT ABOUT LESSONS?

And now, little reader, I know quite well what thought has been popping in and out of your head all this time. You have been wanting to ask me what had become of lessons all these weeks, and how a number of little boys and girls could be allowed to run wild, doing just what they liked all day long.

BABY, DEAR!

Well, it does seem very shocking, and there is no denying that, for a whole month, we did not often see the inside of a book. Yet, I had learnt to read, and had been in the habit of learning to spell and to count every day of my life at home. I don't quite know how it came about that we were not all of us a very untamed set after a month's idleness at the Park. Perhaps, it was a good thing for us that grandmamma was what she was. The very