PUNCH.

"FR

CHAPTER I.

GRANDMOTHER'S WORK-BAG.

RIGHTENED! well, I must say I don't see very much to be frightened at in that! I know I wouldn't be, and I'd like to go very

much, and would start off this very minute if she'd only ask me."

She was Punch's grandmother, and as that little boy spoke he put on a very brave appearance, while his elder, but more fragile-looking brother, whom he addressed, just answered very quietly

A

"Of course, Punch, if I had to do it I should make up my mind to it, and try very hard not to be afraid, and go; but it's true that I don't like it, and grandmother said I was not to think of going if I minded it at all. Of course in the day-time I would start off in a minute, but it's when it's dark that I don't care about the job."

"I'd go in pitch-darkness," Punch, who was lately terribly given to bragging, very readily replied.

It was not in grandmother's line at all to ask her little grandsons to do anything that caused them terror, but she had no idea when she asked Ernest just to run down the avenue, at the side of the house, to fetch her little work-bag, which she had left hanging there on the gate at the end of it, when she was sitting at work in the afternoon, that it would frighten him in the least to go.

"What did you say to grandmother?" Punch isked.

"I told her that I did not like very much to go in the dark."

"Why didn't she ask me?" Punch then said.

"She'll be very glad to ask you now, Punch," a dear, kind old voice half-whispered at the door, when grandmother walked into the room where the boys were talking together.

"So be off at once, Punch," she went on; "as I want my little bag, and when you return with it I've a bright new sixpence for you."

"That's rather a jolly lot, grandmother, for doing such a little thing, isn't it?" Punch asked. "I shall be very glad to give it to you," was the reply.

"Where did you say it was?" Punch then questioned. Grandmother explained again, and Ernest added

"It's hanging on the gate, and the only way to it is through the avenue, and the branches of the trees make it pitch dark, and when they move there are a lot of shadows."

Ernest was really as much afraid for Punch to go as for himself. But the little boy himself said: “I like shadows, and what can there be to care for in pitch-darkness?"

“Well, Punch, I am waiting for my bag," his grandmother then said, “so be off quickly."

The little boy's countenance fell a little.

"I must go and change my boots, first," he said. "That will not take long."

He went very slowly up stairs.

"Look here, Punch," his grandmother called after him, "I want just to speak to you for a minute." He seemed very pleased to come back.

"Well grandmother, what is it?" he asked.

"I wanted just to tell you that if you mind going for this bag, in the very least, I do not want you to do so, and will send one of the servants; but you know I am asking you to go because you said that you wished I would do so."