looked on wait-ing for a bite.

Just at the side gate of the house stood an old cart half full of hay. It had not been used for some time, and a pair of birds had made their nest in it and had two or three young birds, which they were just feed-ing with a worm.

"Oh, how sweet!" cried Kate, "Pa-pa, dear, do stop a min-ute." So pa-pa drew in his hors-es, and they watched them for a lit-tle while. The birds did not seem to mind them at all.

"There are no bad boys here-a-bout," said pa-pa, "that is ve-ry cer-tain."

"I am quite sure," said mam-ma, "that it must be time for us to be home. The sun is near-ly set-ting."

"Yes," said pa-pa, "it is ten min-utes of six. I will take a new way home, and we can be there in a ve-ry short time." So he turned off in-to a lane close at hand. The hors-es seemed to know that their work was near-ly done, and went on so brisk-ly that just as the hall clock struck six they stopped in front of the door.

Nurse was wait-ing on the pi-az-za to meet them, and she jumped Kate out of the car-riage and took her right up to the nur-se-ry, where in a ve-ry short time her tea was all read-y. How hun-gry she was; it seemed to her that bread and milk nev-er tast-ed so good be-fore, and she had her bowl filled three times. At last she pushed back her chair and said she had had e-nough. Then she be-gan to tell to nurse all she had seen—the boys, and the dogs, and all the pleas-ant sights; and all the time that nurse was get-ting her read-y for bed, her small tongue wagged with-out stop-ping. "I am get-ting now to be such a big lit-tle wo-man," she said to nurse, "that I don't think I shall go to bed a-ny more till eight; I on-ly just lay a-wake for an hour when I go at sev-en." But that night when mam-ma came up, at five min-utes past sev-en, to kiss her good-night, she found her lit-tle girl so fast a-sleep that she did not know at all that she had come. "Ha, ha!" laughed mam-ma softly, "I think we will not change the hour for Kate to go to bed just yet."

The next day was bright and fair, and Kate was glad to get out once more. She found that the rain, which had seemed so use-less to her, had been of great ser-vice. Her flow-ers were all look-ing fresh and green, and ev-ery bud was nod-ding its head in the sun-light.