having the small-pox all the children burst out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

'Well!' said Edmund, very gravely, 'didn't you know that?'

'The moon had the small-pox!' cried Mildred. 'How could it? It isn't a person!'

'Don't be stupid!' said Jessie. 'Don't you know that there's a man in the moon?'

'But it was the moon that had the small-pox!' persisted Mildred.

'Of course it was!' said Edmund. Why, that's how the moon comes to be pitted all over, as you '11 know when you learn astronomy.'

'Pitied!' said Violet wonderingly. Oh yes, I see, because it had the small-pox, poor thing!'

'Just so,' said Edmund.

'But I don't see-' began Mildred.

'Be quiet, can't you?' said Punny, giving her a poke. It's the girls that make all the row.'

'I'm sure it isn't then,' said Mary, taking the part of her twin. 'Ferky, you horrid boy! don't!'

For Ferky had put a beetle on her neck, and Mary could not bear insects. She began to scream. 'Now, I tell you what it is!' cried Edmund, fiercely jumping up. But Punny and Ferky both took to

their heels and fled.

'Good riddance!' said Jessie. 'Now we shall have some peace!'

So Edmund went on (not in the least aware that Punny and Ferky were lying in wait close outside, brewing fresh mischief)–

Well, as I said, the big walnut was rolled into one of these pits, and the little moon-men hastened to fill up the pit with stones and earth; and then, satisfied with having avenged themselves, they went back to their caves to rest for the night.

In the morning, great was the surprise of the little moon-men to see growing up out of the pit which they had filled a huge walnut-tree. The branches were laden with big walnuts, but they were SO high up that the little moon-men could not get them.

Every night an old woman came to the tree and pulled one, and as she plucked it, she cried--

'Bleed! bleed!

For thine evil deed!'

and the tree bled where the big walnut came off. When a hundred nights were gone, there remained only one walnut on the tree. The old woman came as usual and pulled it; and as she did so, the walnut tree groaned, and cracked, and shrivelled up, and split open, and out of it came Eoc.

'So!' said the old woman.

of it?'

'What do you think

'Jolly!' said Eoc.

'Give me another toss !'

'Willingly!' answered the old woman.

And she

took him up, and threw him right out of the moon, and he fell into the lap of the Grafinn as she sat in her castle garden. And the little moon

men peeped over the edge of the moon as he fell, and cried

'Aoh! aoh! be a good boy! Aoh! aoh!'

'Aoh! aoh! be a good girl!' cried a voice outside, and at the same moment the little girls had a shower of spiders on their heads and necks, which Punny and Ferky had been busy collecting. There was a general scream and scramble, while Edmund rushed after the offenders, and gave them what they deserved. What this was, every boy who plagues his little sisters knows!

CHAPTER V.

THE RAINBOW.

T was a dull, wet day. The windows looked very 'tearful,' as Violet said, with the long rain-streams chasing each other down the panes; and the garden beyond was still more dreary-looking-what with the rivers in the gravel paths, and the poor battered flowers lying on their beds.

'How horribly dismal!' said Jessie, as she stood idly in the window, following the rain-drops with her fingers. There's nothing to do!'

'I should not think so, if I could move about as you can,' said Violet. 'I should go and make up a play with the others.'

'I don't like playing with them; they get cross with me,' said Jessie. That horrid Ferky pulls my hair,

and Punny pinches.'

'Why don't you paint?' asked Violet.

'I've got nothing to paint; and besides, I've lost

my paint-box.'

'Wouldn't Milly come and play table croquet with

you?'

'I'm tired of that.'

'Well, a story then; I wish you would read me one.' 'I hate reading; there's quite enough of that in the schoolroom.’

Violet sighed. 'How odd it is, Jessie!' she said; 'the things that I should like, and can't do, are just the things that you can do, and don't like. I often wish I might come and do lessons with you all in the schoolroom; and I always think table croquet must be such a nice game, and wish that I could play at it.'

The little girls were silent, each thinking her own thoughts-Jessie thinking how dull and stupid it was to have nothing to do, and Violet wondering why children so often had just the things they did not like. She did some little lessons every morning with her mamma; she could read and write very well; but the music, and drawing, and dancing, which her sisters learnt, she could not; and those were the very things she would have so liked to do! But Violet was learning one great lesson, which was better than all these. What was that?

Patience.

There can be no better lesson for any one. For we are told that if we 'let patience have her perfect work,' we shall 'be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.' So I cannot help thinking that the little Violet was