have waited—mightn't she?

And wasn't it unkind of Mrs. Rose to come and call, and to have to be shown into the drawing-room? She is our doctor's sister, and she is so stiff and white that we call her Mrs. Primrose. That's her nickname. But it never pricks her, because she never hears it.

I wonder if nurse is right when she says, "It is going against the Catechism to make nicknames for grown-up people"?

Well! I didn't know that if you blew a flame with the bellows it would make it run about everywhere. Did you?

I was only trying to make the spirit-lamp burn faster under the kettle.

I was just beginning to be the good wind-fairy then. And the silly flame ran all over the table-cloth, and there was such a flare-up!

I was frightened.

The tea-cosy was burnt. So was the table-cloth. Ann had 'stericks. I think that is what nurse called them. Mrs. Primrose came running in with mother from the drawing-room, and she fainted.

That was all!

At least, I was sent to bed, and now they call me Matty. Don't you think it is unkind of them? Ginevra is such a pretty name too!

I didn't mean to be naughty. And I do wish mother would make me understand all about it; but Teddie is ill, and, of course, she can't leave him until he's better. I shall have to wait, I suppose. But I can't be happy again until I have had a nice talk with mother. She makes everything so understand-ible.

What did nurse mean when she said, the other day, "There's one comfort; Miss Ginevra's character is still unformed"?

GULL'S "TWINSES."

"I ain't."

"My eyes! don't it smell fine? Oh! I do wish father'd come. He's allus a long time when the supper's 'ot;" and Bob, as he spoke, heaved a sigh of such prodigious depth that it might have come from his boots—if he had possessed any, poor little man!

These two small boys, Tom and Bob Gull, were six years old.

"We is only twinses," Bob would say.

Perhaps he said "only" to make us understand that they were just alike in the matter of age, but that there the likeness ended.

Bob, the merry and talkative, was the one who led Tom, the quiet and silent. Bob's twinkling, puppy-like eyes—which peeped at you through a tangled fringe of brown hair—were the exact contrast to Tom's shy blue eyes, shaded by long, fair, girlish lashes. And Bob's jolly little round figure seemed to say, "Anything, be it meagre soup or even dry bread, fattens me;" while Tom's thin little limbs gave one a thought of unconscious cravings for appetising food.

The room where they were watching for father was a third floor front in Pleasant Court, not far from Waterloo Junction. Like many such "living-rooms," it can be best described by telling you that everything in it which should be large was small, and the other way about.

For instance, the fireplace was small and the crack under the door very large. The cupboard was very roomy, but the things kept in it very much too small and scarce. The bed was wide, but the blanket and counterpane sadly narrow.

Was there nothing that was as big as it should be?

Yes, indeed! In spite of these unsatisfactory surroundings, there was as large-hearted a love to be found in the small family which these four walls sheltered from the cold outside world, as any one could wish to see.

"I don't believe father's never coming;" and Bob sighed again.

By this time the herring had found a cindery resting-place on a plate before the fire, and the twins were sitting side by side, with their bare toes on the fender and their eyes fixed upon the door, watching eagerly, like two little terriers.

But the sigh was answered by a distant sound, the plod—plod—plodding of weary feet up the two flights of uncarpeted stairs.

Then there was a grand commotion! The cushionless armchair was dragged nearer the fire; the old slippers dropped sole uppermost into the fender. And then Bob and Tom clung with a vice-like embrace each to an arm of the tall, gaunt, kindly eyed man who had opened the door.

"Father, father! the 'erring's done just lubly. I am glad you're come at last!" This from Bob.

The father's hard, rough hand rested upon his tangled crop, but his eyes were looking into Tom's upturned face.

"And Tom, eh?" he asked.

"Jolly glad," answered the child readily.

Then the three sat down to their evening meal.

Would you like to know what it consisted of?

Tea, of a watery description, but hot (Bob took care of that) and sweet—at least, father's cup, owing to Tom's kindly attentions with a grimy thumb and finger. The herring. This, of course, was the chief dish. Several tit-bits, trembling upon father's fork, find their way into the "twinses'" mouths.

Lastly, bread and dripping.

Gull had tried to teach his motherless lads "to do as mother used." So there followed a systematic cleaning and arranging of the small supply of crockery.

Tom was the first to find a seat upon father's knee as he sat by the fire; but Bob soon climbed opposite to him, and together they looked with expectant eyes into father's face.

And father rubbed his head ruefully as he said, "Eh! I've got to tell the little lads summat to-night, have I? But there's nothing new been done, as far as I knows. It's the old dull story, bairnies. The fewest tips when the weather's the bitterest."

Gull was an outside porter at Waterloo Junction; and a slight lameness, caused by rheumatism, often cost him dearly. If his step could have been quicker, it would many times have taken him in the front of the younger porters, who darted forward and seemed to get all the jobs. The sixpences came very slowly into his pocket.

To-night he felt more than usually down, as he expressed it; and when he felt Tom's little bare toes slipping for warmth under his strong brown hand, tears crept into his eyes, and had to be rubbed away with the back of his sleeve.

Bob was very quick to notice this.

"I say," he cried, "you've been and gone and got something in your eye!"

"Smuts," suggested Tom.

"Oh, let me get them out, father! Do! I'll be ever so gentle." And Bob suited the action to the word by raising himself on his knees to a level with Gull's face, and thrusting a screw of his old jacket into the corner of the suffering eye.

The operation ended in merry laughter, and the boys never knew that the smuts were really tears forced to the surface by an overburdened heart.

"Father was just real funny," that evening, as Bob whispered to Tom, when half the blanket covered them, later on—"just real funny, wasn't he?"

And Tom answered sleepily, but happily, "Yes, jolly."

Meanwhile, the tired bread-winner sat alone by the fire, with all the fun faded from his face as he wondered "how long bad times lasted with most folks?" It was not until, with the childlike simplicity that was part of his nature, he had knelt and repeated the short and perfect prayer with