who would listen to him, "Me knew it was a boy--a large boy--me knew it was a boy--me said a large boy--yes, me felt his coat--me knew it was a large boy." This too might have passed, and the child might have repeated his story over and over again without much harm if he could have got a listener, or he even might have been content without one, if he had not fancied he understood the game as well as the oldest present, so he entered into it with all his little spirit, and intruded his small person where others could not go--now here, now there, till excited and heated and confused by those around him flying in all directions, he was thrown down, and as he did not fall alone, the poor little fellow was rather severely hurt. And now in that one moment of downfall was assembled all the troubles of the day,--weary, excited, hurt, and overfed, he began to cry, and that so violently, that those who lifted him up trusted to his being not really injured by the very noise he made in his distress. Marten and Mary ran to him, but they were as strangers to him, for his eyes were dimmed by tears, and his ears closed by his own wailings; and luckily for all three one of the servants, for, as I said before, they had come to see the young people at play, and who was a motherly kind of woman, advanced into the room and offered to take the charge of the child and comfort him before she put him to bed. Marten was most thankful for this offer, and you may be sure Mary was not sorry to part with the sobbing boy, and thus Marten put it out of his own power to keep his voluntary boast to Nurse at home about sleeping with his brother, for when the riotous evening closed, for it was a very riotous evening, Reuben had been asleep some hours, and in a quarter of the house appropriated to the use of the young ladies where beds were as plentiful as requisite on an occasion like the present. Marten then had nothing for it but to beg Mary to see after his brother, which the young lady as thoughtlessly promised to do, and then he accompanied his young companions to that department of the house appropriated to the use of the boys, where, as might be expected after a little more rude sport, he fell into a sleep so profound and long, that every thought of Reuben was banished from his mind. And now, to return to the poor baby, the victim of mismanagement, or of his brother's self-conceit. Sobbing and roaring he was carried or dragged up stairs, undressed, and put to bed, where the extreme violence of his grief proved its own relief, for he fell asleep with the tear in his eye, and long long after the cause of sorrow was forgotten, his sobs might be heard proclaiming that the effect even now had not passed away. By and bye, however, the calm of sleep restored him more to himself again, and before the motherly woman who had taken pity on him left the chamber, he was sleeping the refreshing sleep of childhood.