floor. And did Martha, in washing floors, leave her bucket of dirty water one moment unguarded, Essie would creep up and pop in one little leg while she stood her ground with the other.

Meg dried her, scolding hard all the time. "All your shoes are spoiled, Baby, you naughty girl; what am I to do to you?"

"Velly solly," said Baby cheerfully.

She squeezed a tear out of her smiling eyes when Meg bade her look at the ruin of her pretty red shoes.

"And you told me a story, Essie; you said you were good, and were not getting wet."

Meg held the little offender away from her, and looked upon her with stern reproach.

"But on'y my legs was dettin' wet—not me," explained Essie, with a sob in her voice and a dimple at the corner of her mouth.

There was nothing of course to be done but put the water-jug into its basin, and carry the small sinner downstairs in dry socks and ankle-strap slippers that showed signs of having been wet through at some time or other.

Bunty was lying on his back on the dining-room couch, which Meg had left strewn with footwear waiting to be paired and rolled up.

"Oh, John!" she said vexedly, seeing her work scattered about the floor.

"John" took no notice. I should tell you, perhaps, that, since starting to school, Bunty's baptismal name had been called into requisition by authorities who objected to nicknames, and his family fell into the way of using it occasionally too.

He was a big, awkward lad, tall for his thirteen years, and very loosely built. Nell used to say complainingly that he always looked as if he needed tightening up. His clothes never fitted him, or seemed part of him, like other boys' clothes. His coats generally looked big and baggy, while his trousers had a way of creeping up his ankles and showing a piece of loose sock.

In the matter of collars he was hopeless. He had a daily allowance of one clean one, but, even if you met him quite early in the morning, there would be nothing but a limp, crooked piece of linen of doubtful hue visible. He had the face of a boy at war with the world. His eyes were sullen, brooding—his mouth obstinate. Every one knew he was the black sheep. He knew it himself, and resented it in silence.

Poppet understood him a little—no one else. He was at perpetual enmity with his father, who had no patience with him at all. Esther excused him by saying he was at the hobbledehoy stage, and would grow up all right; but she was always too busy to help him to grow. Meg's hands were full with Pip; and Nell, after a try or two to win his confidence, had pronounced him a larrikin, undeserving of sisters at all.

So Poppet undertook him. She was a faithful little soul, and in some strange way just fitted into him, despite his awkward angles.

Sometimes he would tell her things, and go to a great deal of trouble to do something she particularly wanted; but then again he would bully her unmercifully, and make her life not worth living.

"Why don't you play cricket, or do something, John?" Meg said, snipping off an end of cotton very energetically. "I hate to see a great boy like you sprawling on a sofa doing nothing."

"Do you?" said John.

"What made you so late home from school? It's nearly teatime. I hope it wasn't detention again."

"It was," said John.

"Oh, Bunty, that means Saturday taken again, doesn't it?"

"It does." John rolled over, and lay on his other side, his eyes shut.

"Bunty, why don't you try?" Meg said; "you are always in scrapes for something. Pip never got in half so many, and yet he wasn't a model boy. Will you promise me to try next week?"

There was a grunt from the sofa cushion that might be interpreted at will as negative or affirmative.

Nell came into the room, her hat swung over her arm.

"Get up, John," she said; "what a horrid boy you are! Look at your great muddy boots on the sofa! Meg, I don't know how you could sit there and see him. Why, if we sat down, we'd get our dresses all spoiled."

"Good job too," said John, not moving a hand.

Nellie regarded him with frankest disgust. "What a collar!" she said, a world of emphasis on the "what." "I declare the street newsboys and match-sellers look more gentlemanly than you do."

The tea-bell rang upstairs; John sat up instantly.

"I hope you saved me more pudding to-day, Meg," he said. "I never saw such a stingy bit as you kept yesterday."

Nell's scarlet lips formed themselves into something very like "pig" as she turned on her heel to leave the room. Then she said "Clumsy wretch!" with startling suddenness. John had set his "great muddy boot" down on one of her pretty flounces, and a sound of sundering stitches smote the air.

"Beg pardon," said John, with a fiendish light of triumph in his eyes. Then he went upstairs two steps at a time to discuss his warmed-up dinner while the others had tea.

CHAPTER II.

SCHOOL TROUBLES.

"A heart at leisure from itself

To soothe and sympathise."

Poppet and Peter were discussing many things in general, and the mystery of life in particular. They were sitting crouched up together in an old tank that had been cast out in the first paddock because it leaked. It was after tea, and Poppet had a little dead chicken in her hand that she had picked up in the garden.

"Ith got wheelth inthide it, and when they thop ith deaded," Peter was saying,—"thust like my thteam engine, thath what tith."

"I think being alive is very funny," Poppet said, looking earnestly at the little lifeless body. "All those chickies was eggs, and then sud'nly they begin running about and enjoying themselves, and then sud'nly they tumble down dead, and even the doctor can't make them run again."

"Yeth," said Peter, his eyes very thoughtful as he tried to grasp great things. "Prapth you might tumble down like that, Poppet; all your wheelth might thtop."

"Or yours," urged Poppet. Death was in her hand. She did not like to feel that ever her active little body could lie like this fluffy, silent one, and so made the likelihood more general.

"Yeth," said Peter; "and oneth, Poppet, I nearly wath deaded, and Judy thaved me."

"You don't remember," Poppet said, in a voice of great scorn. "You was