she said the other day, after a good long morning's sport with me, that I was her favourite plaything after all.”

"You conceited being," chattered the leaden Tea Things!" she never plays with any one half so much as with us. She has made tea in us at least seven times a day, and used our saucers for a dessert service besides."

"You are all mistaken," said the Doll, waving her blue kid hand with a superb air. "You are all wrong. I am the chosen one! I am the favourite. To me is given my mistress's love, and her confidence also. Do I not stay near her the whole day, and sleep on her own pillow at night? And should I not have accompanied her to-day, but that my frock was not quite clean, and she had no time to make me a new one?"

"Oh fie! fie! fie!" screamed all the wooden Birds and Beasts of the Noah's Ark; "how can you be so absurdly conceited and mistaken. We know she likes us the best of all, and has she not mended several of our legs most carefully with

sealing wax? We are the favourites, depend upon it!"

"You have all got green eyes, and are just crazy with jealousy," laughed the Doll's House, rattling all its windows and doors.

And then the battle began, and blows fell thick and fast. The Humming Top bounced and flew about till she pounded all the Birds and Beasts of the Noah's Ark into little bits,--so that the Ark became like a general hospital after a railway accident. The Doll fell upon the leaden Tea Things and thumped them till they were flat, and then threw them into the fire. The Ball waked up out of his sleep, and in his fright jumped in after them. Then the Shuttlecock fought with the Doll, and the warfare resulted in all his remaining feathers being torn out, and his cork split. But he had punched out the Doll's eyes, which now rattled hideously in her head, and so he was satisfied.

"Nurse!" said Rosalind, "what have you been doing with all my toys? Here's the Wax Doll broken--the Shuttlecock in pieces-the

Noah's Ark Beasts with all their legs off, and Mrs. Noah's head gone; and my Ball and the Tea Things missing altogether!"

"I dare say it was the wind or the cat, dear," answered Nurse, sagaciously. And Rosalind, who had been used to hear of the misdeeds of that dreadful cat, believed her, and lectured Pussy seriously on her ill-behaviour, which Puss took in good part, washing her face meekly the while.

Then Rosalind gathered all the scraps together, the battered Humming Top, the torn Shuttlecock, and the disfigured Doll, — and told Nurse to give them away to the carpenter's lame child opposite. "I dare say they will amuse her," said Rosalind gravely; "poor little girl, she hardly knows what toys are. I think I'm getting too old for them almost, Nursey,-grandma' has given me a shilling to spend myself, as I like, and to-morrow I am going out to buy a box of paints."

So the battered toys came down in the world as they deserved, and instead of living in the

nice airy nursery, they were obliged to put up with the low dark room of the dirty, dingy cottage opposite. And instead of the merry rosy cheeks of their little mistress they could only now gaze on the wan sickly face of the little crippled child. But adversity did them good, as it does most people,—and they contented themselves with their lot, and amused and cheered many a weary hour of suffering for the poor little sick child. But the fire had burnt up the Ball and reduced the leaden Tea Things to a shapeless lump.

And the Doll's House laughed, and shook its real glass windows, and rattled its mimic knocker on the painted green door, and said, “Ah, ha! You silly Toys, you are almost reduced to the fate of the celebrated Kilkenny cats. Jealousy is the root of almost every evil in the world, and is sure to bring its child Destruction in its train."

168

THE TOUR OF A SUNBEAM.

A MERRY little Sunbeam looked out of a dark cloud one day--and, tired of her airy life in the upper sky, resolved to set off on her travels to explore the world below. "Who knows," said she, "but that I may light up some dark spot -and do some little bit of good on earth?"

So by way of a first experiment, she slanted down to a dirty-looking small cottage, that stood by the roadside. "What's to do here?" quoth she; "here's cobwebs enough here to weave a cloak from, and dust enough to grow daisies in."

"Bother the Sunbeams!" said old Sally Muddle; "I shall be forced to go and clean that winder; them rays do allus find out the dustmotes !"