class="c7">Whatever you do,
(And you're torments a few,)
You'll never slip out of your dear mother's door;
Or, like Dilly, and Dolly, and Poppledy-polly,
You'll surely be made to repent of your folly!"

The children were very much amused with this woful history, bursting out laughing without any kind of fail when Poppledy-polly, of comical memory and name, was mentioned. Luly said, "Oh, me yike that name! me want to call Dody Popply-polly." This made Kitty laugh more than ever, and they had a great time chasing Dody round the hall, and catching her, to bawl in her ears "Poppledy-polly!" by way of kindly informing her that was to be her new name.

Dody didn't seem to like it much, for she jumped out of Luly's arms with a squeal and a flourish of her long tail, and scampered off faster than ever each time. After watching them, and laughing for a while, Mr. Lacy rose to go, saying:

"Good-by, Little Mother; I must go and see some of the big mothers now. Don't forget me on any account, and tell your mamma, when she comes home, that I approve your style of housekeeping very much indeed."

"Good-by, Mr. Lacy," said Kitty. "Thank you for your funny story."

"Tank 'ou—funny 'tory!" repeated Luly after her sister.

Mr. Lacy lifted the little thing up to his shoulder, and held her there a minute, saying, "Good-by, Poppledy-polly! I hope, when I come again, you will know another hymn to say."

Luly didn't like much to be called Poppledy-polly, and she said, with an air of considerable displeasure, "My name Luly May;" but when the minister kissed her, and called her "his little lamb," she relented, and cooed, "Me yove 'ou, miniter!'

Then something quite sorrowful happened; for two great tears gathered in the minister's eyes, and came slowly rolling down his kind face. Ah! he thought of his own little pet lamb, who once lisped, too, "Me yove 'ou;" who said so now to the dear Jesus; and with that last thought came comfort. Floy was only "sleeping"—and setting little Luly gently down, Mr. Lacy laid a hand on each childish head, saying, "God bless you, my little lambs," and went quietly away. The children watched him drive off, and then capturing Dody once more—by the end of her tail this time—Kitty popped her in her apron; and lugged her up stairs in triumph.

There they found Wawa, sitting on the floor, with an immense pair of scissors held in both hands, and an expression of extreme horror on his face. Mary had left the room, and Kitty, running up to her baby brother, pulled away the scissors in a great fright, exclaiming, "Why, Wawa! where did you get those?"

Wawa stared astonished for a moment, his great blue eyes opened very wide indeed; then he bubbled out, "On yer fore (floor); yook! Gawow all poil!" (spoiled); and poor Wawa puckered up his little rosy mouth, and began to cry most piteously.

KITTY POPPED HER INTO HER APRON

Luly popped on the floor beside him in a minute, and pulling his curly head down on her breast, she murmured, "There—don't c'y, never matter, dear bedder—s'eel get well!" while Kitty lifted up poor Gawow, who was indeed in a pitiable condition. Walter had ornamented her face with several deep digs of the scissors, which made her look as if she had been to the wars and come home with a number of bullet holes in her. Then, not satisfied with this—what does that monkey Wawa do but rip up her whole body from the neck to the waist, and shake out every bit of the bran all over the carpet! leaving the wretched Gawow with not the least particle of insides.

Did you ever hear of such a piece of mischief? But then Walter was such a little fellow—not quite two years old; of course he didn't mean to do anything wrong, and nobody thought of blaming him; so Kitty called Mary to come and sweep up the bran, and Luly and Walter were soon happily engaged in stuffing Gawow with rags, making her look as good as new—or as good as old, I might say; for she was such a direful object in the first place, that it seemed as though she must have been bought in that condition, and never could have been otherwise; after which they dressed her in her very best bonnet and frock, and treated her to a nice dance in the garden, all taking hold of hands; until Mary looked out of the window and called them to come up to dinner.

Kitty was old enough, now, to dine with the grown folks, and behaved like a perfect little lady, too; but on this occasion she was going to take early dinner in the nursery.

She and Luly helped Mary pull out the nursery table, and set the three little plates upon it. Walter's dinner was some mashed potato, with just a tiny mite of chicken among it, minced very fine, and made into an elegant hill on his plate, and a "wishing bone" to suck. Luly had the same, only with more chicken; and Kitty cut up her own wing and slice of breast, with her particular knife and fork, as nice as you please.

There was a great deal of merriment over the dinner, when Walter would look away just as Mary gave him a spoonful of potato, watching her out of the corner of his eye, though, and then bob round again and say "Feed!" just as she had put it down, thinking he didn't want any more. Then he insisted on making Gawow taste the wishing bone, and poked it into both her eyes in succession, as if that was the usual way for people to eat things. After they had finished the chicken and potato, they had some nice custard pudding; and when dinner was over, Kitty went right to the wash stand and cleaned her teeth, while Luly held up her mouth to have Mary brush her little pearly teeth. Do you always do this, little reader? If not, let me beg you to begin right away. Are they done now? Very well, then let us go on with the story.

Pretty soon after, the children were dressed to go out walking; for it was in the early spring time when all this happened, and still pleasant, in the cold country, to take the middle of the day for going out. So Kitty and Luly had their little blue poplin "coat-dresses" buttoned on, and the soft white woollen hoods tied under their rosy faces, and Walter was decked out in his new blue coat; which pleased him so much that he distinguished himself immediately afterward by walking all alone away from the door to the window, quite across the room, and there sitting down suddenly on the floor, much to his astonishment. At last they were all ready and started off, Kitty and Luly hand in hand, and Walter in his little carriage.

The road they liked best led along the top of a high bank, and was called "Buena Vista" terrace. There were very pretty houses built along here, shaded by tall trees; and if the children peeped cautiously over the iron fence that guarded the edge of the bank, they could sometimes see the steam cars rushing along the shore below. They were very fond of watching the hurrying train go by, though it frightened them a little, particularly when the engine gave a shrill scream before stopping at the station about a quarter of a mile further on. Kitty and Luly couldn't help squealing too when