small crop of very dingy green leaves, much behind their time.

However, this garden, such as it was, was a great delight to us children. There we spent all our play time in fine weather; and when it rained, we took refuge in the old stable at the end. That stable, with the loft above, was quite a mysterious place to me as a child, for there my brother Tom had set up a carpenter's bench, and there he kept all sorts of saws and formidablelooking instruments, of which I lived in wholesome dread.

I think, next to the stable, the attic, where my sister Jane and I slept, was my favourite place. It was quite in the roof, so that the ceiling sloped up from the floor on one side, and I could climb out of window into the gutter, where I had a fine view of roofs and chimneys. I was very fond of sitting in the window with my feet in the gutter, and used to try to imagine that the red roofs were mountains with the sunset glow on them, and that the dirty little sparrows hopping about were eagles, and the cats chamois. I tried to make a little garden up there too, but met with small success. The plants did me no credit; they were always so straggling and sickly looking, and scarcely ever bore any flowers.

My brother Tom was my constant companion. Jane, who was the eldest, went to a boarding school, and Tom

and I had a daily governess for a short time. I am afraid we led her a sad life, for we were wild children, and she was impatient and irritable, and did not understand the art of gaining either our respect or love.

Her reign was but short, and I remember little about it, except that she made me hate lessons, and thoroughly impressed me with the idea that I was too stupid to make it worth my while even to try to learn. One day we were more than usually tiresome, I suppose; for she suddenly turned to me with flashing eyes and said, "You hate me-I know you do. You are sorry to see me come, and rejoice to see my back, don't you?" I answered quite simply, "Yes;" for it was true. Tom began to laugh and squint horribly, which was his way when anything tickled his fancy. The poor woman could stand it no longer, but rushed off to our mother, declaring that she would not teach such children another day.

Mother reproved us, and did her best to pacify the governess; but she left us very soon after that, and Tom and I rejoiced in our liberty. We did not wish to be bad, but she did not understand us. From us she went to teach two very meek-looking little girls. I hope she found them more manageable.

There was a good deal of discussion about what was

to be done with us. Our father thought it high time that Tom began to learn Latin and Greek. It was difficult in those days to find a lady who even pretended to know anything of the classics, so for a time we ran wild.

One evening our father came home with a beaming face, and I knew when I let him in that something had happened to please him. He did not tell us what it was till I had pulled off his boots and given him his slippers and he was settled down in his arm-chair by the fire. Then he turned to mother and said—

"Well, my dear, I think I have found the very thing for Tom and Mabel. I was introduced to-day to a Professor Kaufmann, a German, evidently a very clever fellow. He says he will come in for a few hours every day and teach the children. I must say I am quite delighted. A little thoroughly good teaching will do them a world of good."

I felt delighted, too, at the idea of learning real boy's lessons; but a little awe-struck at the thought of being taught by a "Professor,"

Mother shook her head dubiously, and said she thought it would be better to let the Professor teach Tom, and send me to school with Jane, where I should learn to be a young lady; but father protested against that arrangement, and said he could not afford to have

more than one young lady in the family, and he could not see why girls should not be taught as thoroughly as boys; and besides that, he said he should miss his little Mab too much-he wanted her to fetch his slippers and wait on him, and he should feel quite lost without her. After a little more talk the matter was settled, and Professor Kaufmann came.

He was a strong-built, broad-shouldered man, not tall, with a most intelligent face, with keen bright eyes very deeply set, and a thick brown beard and moustache. His manner was grave, but very kind. At that time he must have been under thirty, although to us children he appeared quite a middle-aged man.

At first I felt frightened of him, but I soon learned to love him, as every one did that knew him. Father and he took a liking to each other, and soon became, what Tom called, regular chums.

The Professor was a very learned man, and called himself a philosopher; he was writing a great work, which was to reform society. His manner of teaching was, as may be imagined, utterly different from the method pursued by our former governess. He succeeded in making us love learning, and delight in our lessons. His habits were most frugal, and, I think, take him altogether, he was the happiest, most contented spirit I ever knew.

He lived with his mother, an old woman with gray hair and without a cap, which we children thought very unbecoming. She was always knitting stockings for her Fritz, and her thoughts seemed continually occupied with the difficulty of making "sour-krout" in this country. It was beautiful to see Herr Kaufmann's devotion to his old mother. His manner to her was so tenderly protective, and yet so respectful, that, child as I was, it always filled me with admiration. He often took me to see her, that I might learn "domestic economy" and to knit stockings; for he thought no woman complete who had not attained that art. He called me his little maiden, and wished to make me everything that was admirable.

The Professor's room soon took the place of the old stable in my affections. It was full of curiosities. Skulls and bones, skeletons of birds and beasts, geological specimens, and numberless other things that excited my wondering curiosity, and filled me more and more with awe and reverence for the kind learned man who condescended to be interested in such an ignorant, insignificant little creature as myself; for interested in me no doubt he was, from the very first, much to my surprise after my former experience. Before long the German made quite a habit of coming in in the evenings,