HOLIDAY; OR, Short Tales for the Nursery. BY THE AUTHOR OF "MIA AND CHARLIE," "SIDNEY GREY," f PREFACE. -:0: T HESE stories are intended to be read out loud to children of from six to eight years old. They are not written in sufficiently short words for very young children to read to themselves. The writer has often observed that stories carefully written for children in one or two syllabled words, are less pleasing to them and less easily understood than others where greater care has been taken to express the meaning naturally, and less thought bestowed on the number of letters in the words. We do not confine ourselves in speaking to words of one and two syllables, and children are often puzzled by the introduction of a short unfamiliar word where another longer and more difficult to spell, but more commonly used, would have made the meaning quite clear. These tales have been written in the same language in which they have been often told, and they are offered to such mothers, aunts, and nurses as find it less fatiguing to read a tale out loud than to invent one, in the hope that they may help to keep the little people in some nurseries happy, quiet, and good on one or two of the rainy days and long dark afternoons that winter is sure to bring us. BLIND-MAN'S HOLIDAY. THE NURSERY WINDOW -:0: IT is blind-man's holiday," said Hugh, a little boy of seven years old, to his Aunt Helen, one evening in November; "and you know you promised us last summer, that when winter came, and there was a blind-man's holiday before tea, you would tell us a story every evening. Don't you think this dark cold evening is a good time to begin?" Yes, indeed, Aunt Helen," said Francis, his younger brother, "it is a good time-there is nothing to be seen from the window. It has rained all day, and we have not been out, so that we are rather tired of all our toys. There is nothing we should like so much as to hear a story." Aunt Helen was almost as ready to tell stories as the little boys were to hear them. "I think you deserve a story this evening," she said, "for you have been very quiet, and amused yourselves nicely all the afternoon. Let us all sit in the rocking-chair-Aunt Helen in the middle, and a |