"How do you do, Mary?" said Helen's papa; "I have brought my little daughter to see you. You know I told you some time ago that she had often watched you from her nursery window, and that she had got strange fancies into her foolish head. about you."

The dwarf woman smiled when Helen's papa said this, and she came up to Helen and kissed her, and made her sit down on a little stool. Helen was glad to sit down, for she was so bewildered that her feet trembled under her. She sat and looked about her, while her papa and little Mary talked. She saw that she was in quite a common room; there was no trap-door in itthere were no fairy wands in it-no glass balls that might be magic mirrors in it;-there were only common worsted balls, and slates, and copybooks, and forms for children to sit upon. When Helen had looked carefully at everything in the room, she began to listen to what her father and Mary were talking about. It was not about magic or fairyland; it was about very common things about sick people whom little Mary had nursed, and people in trouble whom she had helped, and children whom she was teaching. Byand-bye Helen's papa took a book out of his

pocket and began to read. He read a story about a little man, long ago, who climbed up into a tree that he might see Jesus Christ go by. Helen sat quite still on her stool and listened. She wondered how it had all been then; whether the boys had teazed, and the tall men laughed at, that little man, and how surprised they must have been when Jesus turned and called him. It seemed a beautiful story to Helen; but the dwarf woman must have seen more in it than the story, for Helen saw that, as she listened to the reading, tears came into her eyes, and rolled down on to the stocking she was knitting. Before Helen's father got up to go there came many knocks at the door. They were given by Mary's scholars, who were coming in to their afternoon school. Many of them were twice as tall as Mary herself; but they came in in an orderly way, and took their seats more quietly than Helen and her brother did when they went to school. After that day Helen often went to visit little Mary. She used to like to sit by the hour together on the stool in the corner of the fireplace, and watch her as she taught her scholars, and tidied her room, and waited on her sick father. Helen knew well enough that the tales Stephen had told her were all nonsense; but when she saw

how the great boys obeyed little Mary-how everybody in trouble came to her for help, and how grown-up women and strong men asked her advice in their difficulties, she thought she could not be wrong in believing that there was magic about her, after all. Sometimes Helen had sense enough to know that it was not at all the sort of magic she read about in story-books, and sometimes she used to indulge in fancies, of how nice it would be if little Mary could turn one day into the fairy Mrs. Calkill. If the little room, and the sick father, and the noisy school children should not be all that there was for her, but that somewhere— Helen did not know where-there was waiting for her the enchanted palace, and the beautiful gardens, and the sparkling crown.

"Oh, Aunt Helen, I wish it had been so.'

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My dear, you need not wish; little Mary is dead, and now for many years she has been enjoying her beautiful things.”

"Well, that is a nice story, Aunt Helen. Tomorrow evening in blind-man's holiday; you shall tell us just such another, please."

THE HOLE IN THE WALL.

How happy country children are when the spring comes! What a pleasant day that is when they are allowed for the first time to go out after tea and play in the garden till bed-time! How glad they are when they may run and look for cowslips in the meadow behind the house, and when they find that the little river at the bottom, which had been swollen all February and March, is now narrow enough for the boys to leap across it, and for the girls to sit on the bank and make nosegays of blue speedwell and yellow golans. Above all, how fortunate that country child is whose birthday falls at the end of April or in the beginning of May, for in his or her honour the first tea-drinking out of doors is sure to be given-and is there any festival in all the year so sweet as that? Do you not all know how such a time passes? How nice the nursery teatable looks when it is brought out and placed under the great tree, whose leaves are still such a tender green. How good humoured the servants are about

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bringing out all the things that first time. How the children laugh as they arrange their own little cups and saucers. What large plates of bread and butter are put on the table. How very brightly the sun shines, how loudly the birds sing, and how the lilacs overhead and the hyacinths in the garden plots seem to try which can breathe out the sweetest perfumes on the still warm air around. At last, when all is ready, how papa and mamma come smiling through the glass door from the diningroom, not at all sorry for once to have been obliged to hurry over their dinner, and as ready to talk and laugh and sing and rejoice in the spring weather, as the children themselves.

When such delightful things as these happen, children may well rejoice when the days lengthen and the sun gets more power; but to children who live in close houses in the town, spring is not such a pleasant time. At least, I know that it was not a happy time to little Helen, and I think I can explain to you better than any one else, why she did not like it. I can remember very well how hot and dusty and tiring the streets were when Nurse Bream and Martha, the nursemaid, and Helen, and the baby, went out to take their afternoon walk. Nurse Bream walked first, carrying the baby, and