Martha Washington's fat and jolly face was gloomy with prophecy.

"Yo' knows, for a fac', Miss Doxy," she said, "how 'tractive dem peacocks has allays b'en to de fam'ly down dar," and she pointed a fat, disapproving finger at the cottage, for Martha Washington shared her mistress's prejudices. "De gemman hisself done sit on de fence in de br'ilin' sun, a-takin' of dem off wiv his pencil, an' de leetle gal say her mammy done want a fan made out ob de Prince's tail. And see yar, Miss Doxy," Martha Washington solemnly drew from her pocket a brownish-drab feather,—“I done fin' dis stickin' in de cottage fence whar de pore bird was pulled froo." And Martha Washington spread out both her fat hands, as if to emphasize her proof of the "cottage people's" guilt.

Aunt Doxy was overcome. "O my poor Princess!" she said. "What could they want it for?" "Why, to eat, Miss Doxy, o' course," declared Martha Washington. "Dat sort o' s'picious folks allays get de curusest t'ings to eat. Dey took Princess for deir T'anksgibin' dinner."

"What ignorant, barbarous people they must be to eat a peacock!" said Aunt Doxy. "I certainly must write a letter of remonstrance, and see what excuse they can offer for so unchristian an act."

Aunt Doxy was considered by her fellow-workers in church and Sunday-school as having an especial gift for dealing with transgressors. So she seated herself at her desk, and proceeded to the task of bringing her sinful neighbors to a sense of their great wickedness. She did not hesitate to show them plainly the wrong of which they had been guilty, and she did not even deem it fitting that, as was often the case with her, justice should be tempered with mercy. Aunt Doxy sadly feared that her objectionable neighbors were hardened offenders, whose hearts could not be easily touched.

Here, Thaddy," she said, as she folded her note, "you may carry this to the cottage; come back just as soon as you have delivered it do you hear?"

And Thaddy, overjoyed at this opportunity to enter forbidden ground and have even a few moments of Rupert's society, replied, "Yes 'm," with suspicious docility, and ran off like a flash.

nose flattened against the window-pane: "I wonder why Thaddy does n't come back?" "Had

Aunt Doxy looked up in great alarm. n't he come back?" she asked. How could she have forgotten him? But surely they could not be wicked enough to harm a child.

Tim was dispatched in great haste in search of the missing boy. He found him in the grove behind the cottage, playing with Rupert. Thaddy was silent and ashamed under Aunt Doxy's reproof. Rupert had coaxed him to play, and he had played. That was all he would say, except the expression of his opinion that "Rupert was a good boy, and was going to have a donkey with long ears." It was evident that, in spite of the melancholy fate of the poor Princess, Thaddy had a great longing for the society at the cottage.

Miss Doxy sat up late, expecting a message of some sort from her neighbors, but none came. Poor Prince Charming was uttering doleful and discordant cries for the lost partner of his joys and sorrows.

"Oh, how truly thankful I could be to-morrow," thought Aunt Doxy, "if those people had only gone back to town!"

But when she arose in the morning, a bright and jolly Thanksgiving sun was peeping above the gables of the little red, olive, and yellow cottage, and an ample Thanksgiving smoke was pouring out of its chimney.

Aunt Doxy seated herself at the breakfast table sad at heart. The children said little, and the poor peacock recommenced his wailing. Suddenly there came a violent knocking at the back door. "The answer to my letter," thought Aunt Doxy.

But it was n't. For the next moment there burst into the room a stout Irishwoman with a big basket, dragging in a shame-faced boy Mrs. O'Flanigan and Barty!

From the basket arose a voice - muffled and hoarse, but still familiar, and sounding like sweet music to Aunt Doxy's ear.

the poor baste half wrung, an' the craythur near kilt, I was afeerd to bring her home til ye. An' shure, I shplinthered up the neck ov her and docthered her up wid swate ile, an' last night she'd ate a bit, an' this marnin' her voice had grown that swate and nat-chooral 't would bring tears to the oies ov yer. And, sez I to Barty, sez I, 'Come along up to Miss Appleby's wid me,' sez I, 'an' if it is n't hangin' ye 'll get,' sez I, 'it's in the cowld jail ye 'll spind yer Thanksgivin'-day,' sez I, 'fur murtherin' ov her poor baste ov a paycock — an' ye wud have murthered her but for me,' sez I. "

Barty looked as dejected as anything so small could well look; but he lifted up his gruff little voice courageously.

"Shure, I nivver knew that a craythur could be a paycock widout a tail, at all, at all," he said piteously, "an' seein' it war n't manin' any harrum I was, an' the hairt ov me quite broke intoirely, an' me mither's, an' we not havin' anythin' barrin' praties for our Thanksgivin' dinner, shure ye moit lave me off, Miss Appleby, mum,—an’shure I'll nivver come where I hear the voice ov a paycock agin." Aunt Doxy was so happy to have her dear Princess restored that she could blame no one. "Never mind, Barty, you need n't feel badly," she said. "You shall have the turkey I promised you; a fine, fat one, and all ready for the oven. -But, oh, dear," she exclaimed, “if I only had n't written that letter."

Barty's woe-begone look gave place to a beam of happiness; but as he and his mother went off with a fine turkey in the big basket, he still protested that "shure it was not a right baste at all, at all, that pertinded to be a paycock an' had n't no iligint tail-feathers."

Aunt Doxy was still bemoaning her sad mistake when Martha Washington, who felt that perhaps she was somewhat to blame in the matter, came in with a letter.

"Oh, dear, is it the answer?" said Aunt Doxy. "Reckon not, Miss Doxy, it done come froo de

post-offis," replied Martha Washington, scanning it closely. "Pears like it might be from Miss Sarah Wilhelmina.”

"Oh! oh!" cried Aunt Doxy, as she read the letter, "what do you suppose Sarah Wilhelmina says? She says that Mrs. Gracey knows the people in the cottage very well, and that she congratulates me on having such delightful neighbors. They are Mr. A—, the celebrated artist, and his family; and Mrs. A—— is a daughter of my old minister, Dr. Forristall, who is going to spend Thanksgiving with them!"

Aunt Doxy dropped the letter in her lap. "Oh, that letter, that dreadful letter!" she said. "What must they think of me?"

But now Thaddy looked up suddenly from a thoughtful consideration of the yellow kitten's eyes. "Are you sorry you wrote it, Aunt Doxy; true as you live, and never do so again?" he asked solemnly, "and would you be a little easy on a fellow if if-if an accident had happened to that letter?” "Why, Thaddeus, what do you mean? Tell me instantly," said Aunt Doxy.

"Well," confessed Thaddy, "you see, before I rang the bell at the cottage Rupert asked me to play with him, and we went out to the grove back of the house, and he was making a kazoo on a comb and wanted a piece of paper, and so I pulled that letter out of my pocket, without thinking what it was, and tore it up, and I'm awful sorry, but ——___”

"Thaddy, it was very, very wrong of you to be so careless and disobedient," said Aunt Doxy; "but this time I do believe it was an interposition of Providence."

And soon another letter was dispatched to the cottage, and Aunt Doxy followed it with an invitation to dinner. And Mr. A——— and Mrs. Aand Rupert and Marguerite all came up from the cottage, and so did Dr. Forristall. And so it came to pass that they had a jolly Thanksgiving at Pine Hill Farm after all. And Barty O'Flanigan had his turkey, too.

"WILL you pull back the curtains, Mamma?" he said;

"There's a beautiful moon to-night,
And I want to lie right here in my bed
And watch it, so yellow and bright.”

So I tried to arrange the curtains and bed
For the dear little laddie of mine.

"Can you see it now?" "No," he cheerfully said, "But I can see its beautiful shine."

Dear baby! his innocent answer I prize.
It is full of a meaning divine;
When the bright things we wish drift away
from our eyes,

May not we, too, rejoice in their "shine?"

"I SHALL take Mamma's red sun-umbrella; it is so warm, and none of the children at school will have one like it," said Lilly, one day, as she went through the hall.

"AWAY SHE WENT, RIGHT UP IN THE AIR."

"The wind is very high; I'm afraid you'll be blown away if you carry that big thing," called nurse from the window.

"I wish I could be blown away; I always wanted to go up in a balloon," answered Lilly, as she struggled out of the gate.

She managed quite well until she came to the bridge, where she stopped to look over the railing at the fast-running water below, and the turtles sunning themselves on the rocks. Lilly was fond of throwing stones at the turtles; she thought it funny to watch them tumble with a headlong

splash into the water. Now, when she saw three big fellows close by, she stooped for a stone, but just at that very minute a gale of wind nearly took the umbrella out of her hand. She clutched it tightly; and away she went like a thistle-down, right up in the air, over river and hill, houses and trees, faster and faster and faster, till her head spun around, her breath was all gone, and she had to let go. The dear red umbrella flew away like a leaf; and Lilly fell down, down, till she came crash into a tree which grew in so curious a place that she forgot her fright as she sat looking about her.

The tree looked as if it were made of glass or colored sugar; for she could look through the red cherries, the green leaves, and the brown branches. An agreeable aroma came to her nose. "Oh," she cried at once, as would any child have said, "I smell candy!" She picked a cherry and ate it. Oh, how good it was! - all sugar and no stone. The next discovery was so delightful that she nearly fell off her perch; for by touching her tongue here and there, she found the whole tree was made of candy. What a pleasure to sit and break off twigs of barley sugar, candied cherries, and leaves that tasted like peppermint and sassafras!

Lilly rocked in the branches and ate away until she had finished the top of the little tree; then she climbed down and strolled along, making more surprising and agreeable discoveries as she

went.

What looked like snow under her feet was white sugar; the rocks were lumps of chocolate; the flowers were of all colors and tastes; and every sort of fruit grew on those delightful trees. Little white houses soon appeared; and in them lived the dainty candy people, all made from the best sugar, and painted to look like real people. Dear little men and women, looking as if they had stepped off of cakes and bonbons, went about in their gay sugar clothes, laughing and talking in sweet-toned voices. Bits of babies rocked in open-work cradles and sugar boys and girls played with sugar toy in a very natural way. Carriages rolled along the jujube streets, drawn by red and yellow barley horses; cows fed in the green fields, and sugar birds sang in the candy trees.

Lilly listened, and in a moment she understood, in some way, just what the song said,—

with no tiresome school or patchwork to spoil my fun," said Lilly.

So she ran up the chocolate steps into the pretty rooms, where all the chairs and tables were of every colored candy, and the beds of spun sugar. A fountain of lemonade supplied drink; and floors of ice-cream that never melted kept people and things from sticking together, as they would have done, had it been warm.

For some time Lilly was quite happy, in going about, tasting the many different kinds of sweets, talking to the little people, who were very amiable, and finding out curious things about them and their country.

The babies were plain sugar, but the grown people had different flavors. The young ladies were mostly violet, rose, or orange; the gentlemen were apt to have cordials of some sort inside of them, as she found when she slyly ate one now and then, and as a punishment had her tongue bitten by the

much. Lilly soon learned to know the characters of her new friends by a single taste, and some she never touched but once. The dear babies melted in her mouth, and the delicately flavored young ladies she was very fond of. Dr. Ginger was called to her more than once when so much candy made her teeth ache, and she found him a very hot-tempered little man; but he stopped the pain, so she was glad to see him.

A lime-drop boy and a little pink checkerberry girl were her favorite playmates; and they had fine times making mud-pies by scraping the chocolate rocks and mixing this dust with honey from the wells near by. These pies they could eat; and Lilly thought this much better than throwing them away, as she had to do at home. They had candypulls very often, and made swings of long loops of molasses candy, and birds'-nests with almond eggs, out of which came birds that sang sweetly. They played foot-ball with big bull's-eyes, sailed in sugar boats on lakes of syrup, fished in rivers of molasses, and rode the barley horses all over the country. Lilly discovered that it never rained, but that it white-sugared. There was no sun, as it would have been too hot; but a large yellow lozenge made a nice moon, and there were red and white comfits for the stars.

All the people lived on sugar, and never quarreled. No one was ill; and if any one was broken, as sometimes happened with so brittle creatures, the fractured parts were just stuck together and all was right again. When they grew old they became thinner and thinner, till there was danger of their vanishing. Then the friends of the old person bore him to the great golden urn, always full of a certain fine syrup, which stood in their largest temple; and into that he was dipped and dipped till he was stout and strong again, and went home as good as new, to enjoy himself for a long time. This was very interesting to Lilly, and she went to many such rejuvenations. But the weddings were better still; for the lovely white brides were so sweet that Lily longed to eat them. The feasts were delicious; the guests all went in their best clothes, and danced at the ball till they grew so warm that half-a-dozen would stick together and would have to be taken to the ice-cream room to cool off. Then the happy pair would drive away in a fine carriage with white horses to a new palace in some other part of the country, and Lilly would have another pleasant place to visit.

But by and by, when she had seen everything, and eaten so many sweet things that at last she longed for plain bread and butter, she began to be cross, as children always are when they live on candy; and the little people wished she would go away, for they were afraid of her. No wonder,

for she would sometimes catch up a dear sugar baby and eat it, or break some respectable old grandmamma all into bits because she reproved her for her naughty ways. Finally, Lilly calmly sat down on the biggest church, crushing it flat, and one day in a pet, she even tried to poke the moon out of the sky. The King ordered her to go home; but she said, "I wont!" and, with a petulant motion, she knocked off his head, crown and all. Such a wail went up at this awful deed that she

"I WONT!"

ran away out of the city, fearing that some one would put poison in her candy, since she had no other food.

"I suppose I shall bring up somewhere if I keep on walking; and I can't starve, though I hate the sight of this horrid stuff," she said to herself, as she hurried over the mountains of Gibraltar rock that divided the city of Saccharissa behind her from the great desert of brown sugar that lay beyond.

Lilly marched bravely across this desert for a long time, and saw at last a great smoke in the sky, smelt a spicy smell, and felt a hot wind blowing toward her.

"I wonder if there are sugar savages here, roasting and eating some poor traveler like me," she said, thinking of Robinson Crusoe and other wanderers in strange lands.

She crept carefully along till she saw a settlement of little huts very like mushrooms, for they were made of cookies set on lumps of brown sugar. Queer people, looking as if made of gingerbread, were working very busily around several stoves which seemed to be baking away at a great rate.

"I'll creep nearer and see what sort of people they are before I show myself," thought Lilly, going into a grove of spice trees and sitting down on a stone which proved to be the plummy sort of cake we used to call Brighton Rock.

Presently one of the tallest men came striding toward the trees with a pan, evidently to get spice; and before Lilly could run away he saw her.