class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[19]"/> Jessie, a sweet little blue-eyed fairy, with quiet, gentle manners, brought two beautiful dolls, dressed in white, trimmed with black velvet. The children all kissed the dolls, they thought them "so sweet;" but Lily's mother kissed Jessie, and I think she had the best of it.

Ellie had a dolly that ought to have married the Kentucky giant, for she was so big she had to have a whole chair to herself. The dear little girl was so anxious to have her appear to advantage that, before she came to the party, she went with her brother into the garden, and, after a grand consultation, they picked two immense dahlias, which she insisted should be pinned on dolly's shoulders, and her mother had great difficulty in persuading her that dolly looked much handsomer without them.

Hugh, a dear little boy with very bright eyes, brought a boy-doll, which he called Mr. Brown.

There was one live doll at the party. She was not quite as high as Ellie's doll, and such a sweet little blue-eyed creature, with such soft, curling hair that, if she had not been jumping and laughing nearly all the time, you would really have taken her for a beautiful wax doll. Her name was little "Mary," and she was about two years old.

I wish you could have heard little Mary sing "Where is my little Kitty gone," sitting in a tiny chair with her little doll in her arms, bobbing it up and down in her lap to keep time. Her sweet little baby voice was like a robin's note; and I, for one, would not have lost that dear little song for all the Italian operas from here to China.

There were a great many other pretty children, and splendid dolls that I have no time to describe; and the bride and groom sat on the sofa and stared at them all, as if they never meant to look at any thing else.

And now that all had congratulated the happy couple, you would have thought that the queen of fun and frolic had joined the party, and all the cross children had gone up to the moon, and never meant to come down again; for the children—putting the dolls on the chairs, to play grown people—all tumbled down on the carpet, and had a grand game of "hunt the slipper," and did not leave off till supper was announced.

Supper was set out in—hem!—in the garret; but, let me tell you, it is quite as fine to go up so high to supper, as to dive down in the basement; at all events the children thought so, for they scuffled and scrambled up the stairs, all laughing and talking, and nobody listening, so that they might as well have given their ears to their dolls, for any use they were, and arrived at the festive banquet quite breathless.

And now, what a splendid sight presented itself! The table was beautifully ornamented, and brilliantly lighted by four candles about as long as your finger, one at each corner; in the centre was a large wedding cake, at least as big round as a breakfast plate, with roses and lilies and daffadowndillies all over it, perfectly beautiful to look at, and perfectly delicious to eat; and there was every thing else on the table that you can think of.

All the dolls were set up stiff and straight on one side, and the children on the other, and the children eat for both sides, and had the most delightful time, till the minister, who was a wax doll with short hair and movable eyes, was discovered to be fast asleep, or else his eyes had been accidentally put out—and, as the candles were also going out, it was high time for supper to be over.

The children now came down stairs, and, before they left, were invited by Lily to inspect the presents.

"Oh, dear!" cried Alice, "what a splendid silver cake-basket! and here is a knife, fork, and spoon, and, goody! just see these other spoons, with her name on them, how very arittoscratic."

Between you and me, little reader, the basket, and knife, fork and spoon, were silver—made of pewter; but there were, besides, six "darling little spoons," that were really silver, which had been given to Lily by her aunt; and Lily had presented them to her doll, the bride.

"And only see this china basket," said little Jessie; "blue basket and red handle; how perfect!"

"And who gave her the splendid embroidered pincushion, I wonder," said Alice, jumping up and down; "it will hold a whole row of pins, I'm sure; and the beautiful preserve dishes, they would hold one cherry apiece; dear me! how nice they look!"

"They are salt-cellars," answered Lily, laughing, "and this is a china candlestick. I shall have to have some candles made, the size of knitting needles; but, dear me, ladies! just look at the groom! He must be going crazy!"

The children all turned to look, and there was the Count de Morny tumbled over on the sofa with his legs up in the air.

"What conduct!" cried Lily; "he ought to be ashamed of himself," and she marched up to the sofa, and took the bride's hand and boxed the Count's ears well, saying that "boxing ears was very much practised, since Queen Victoria had set the fashion."

And now it was getting late, for the sun's rays were coming red and aslant into the room, and all the little ones gathered up their dolls, and prepared to leave this delightful party.

I should think there were about two hundred kisses exchanged on this occasion; for everybody kissed everybody, and then everybody kissed Lily and the bride; and Lily kissed everybody else, and nobody kissed the Count de Morny, which was quite as many kisses as he deserved, for he was a perfect scarecrow, and nothing else; you might as well have tried to fish the moon out of the river, as expect him to sit up straight, and behave himself, or do any thing but wink and blink, and tumble over on his ugly old nose.

After the kissing, everybody said good-bye, and all the children went home delighted, to tell their parents of the nice time they had had; and they all hoped that Lily would soon take it into her dear little head, to invite them to another doll's wedding, as she had about a dozen dolls, and more paper dolls than she could count. Be sure, if she does, I will give you a faithful account of the whole affair.

WHAT CAME OF GIPSYING;

OR,

Think before you Act.

I once knew a bright-eyed, handsome boy, with curling brown hair, which he had a habit of throwing, with a quick jerk of his head, back from his forehead; and this habit was a sort of type of his character, for he was so impetuous, that he would act upon an idea the very moment it came into his head, and this want of reflection led him into innumerable scrapes—some of them pretty serious.

"Charlie," said his father to him one day, "if you expect to get sugar plums and amusing story books in your Christmas stocking, instead of a birch rod, you must mend your ways considerably. How will you get along when you grow up to be a man, if you rush about the world like a comet, upsetting every thing in your way, and doing all manner of imprudent things without stopping to think twice?"

"Well, now, dear papa, I really will try to think twice before I do a thing, if I possibly can, though I have just read a very funny anecdote about that very saying."

"What was it?" said his father.

"It was this: An old gentleman had a black servant, who always acted as if he had no head, or might as well have been without one—something like me, I suppose; but his master tried his best to put some sense into his head, and did not omit to tell him, at least fifty times a day,