MISS MIMINY PIMINY. "AUNT HELEN, will you tell us another story about the time when you were a little girl?" "But I am afraid I have told you now every story about that time that there is to tell." "Oh, no. else to tell." Do think; there must be something "I have told you about Miss Stainton's school." "Yes; but I don't think you have ever told us all about it; besides, here are Ethel and Arthur, who were too young to listen the last time you told the story, and they want to hear it to-night." "Very well. And now I think of it there is one story about Miss Stainton's school that I don't think I have ever yet told to any one. You shall hear it to-day; and because I don't like to say I, I, so often over, and because it might puzzle Ethel and Arthur if I did, I shall call myself little Helen, as I have done before, and tell the story from the very beginning, as if it came out of a book. There was once, then, as I have often told you, a silly little girl, called Helen. When she was very little she used to sit all day long on a high chair near the nursery window, and have strange fancies about the people whom she saw passing up and down the street. "When she had grown too big for the high chair, and when she had been told very often that she really must not always sit in the window, she used to creep under the dining-room table and read a little old story book that her eldest brother had given her, till her hands were quite blue with cold, and both her feet fast asleep; then she used to creep from under the table and amuse herself all the rest of the morning by running round and round the dining-room, or through the hall, or up and down the nursery, making a great noise with her shoes, and fancying all the time that she was not in the house at all, but that she was running through desert places where lions and tigers lived, and that by and bye she should come to a wonderland, where all sorts of pleasant and strange adventures would befall her. At last her mamma said that it would not do for Helen to be idle any longer, that it was time she began to learn something; so one morning, directly after breakfast, Nurse Bream called Helen into the night nursery, and tied on her bonnet and spencer, and told her that she was going, with her brother Arthur, to Miss Stainton's school that very day. Little Helen's heart beat very fast when she heard this, and she stood quite still while nurse dressed her; she was half glad and half sorry. She wondered how she could have got old enough to go to school without knowing it; and she was afraid that, as she walked through the streets, the people would look at her and say to each other, "Why, there is little Helen going to school; we thought she was quite a little girl, but you see she has grown big, for she is going to-day to Miss Stain ton's school." Miss Stainton's school was not very far from the house where Helen lived, but it was too far for her and Arthur to walk there alone. A servant called Brewer walked with them; he was a very kind man, he carried Helen part of the way, and he talked to her while he was carrying her. "You must be a good girl, Miss Helen, and mind your books," he said. Helen thought that if one had only to mind books at school, school must be a nice place; for do know at that time Helen was so ignorant you that she thought all books were story books. She had never heard then of such things as multiplication table, or geography, or grammar books. Brewer let Helen walk when they came to the street where Miss Stainton's house stood. It was rather a wide street, and each of the houses had a little square garden in front, with a gate opening on to the street. All the gates were painted green but one, that was a white gate, and the white gate was Miss Stainton's gate. "So you will always know the house when I am not with you, Miss Helen," Brewer said; and indeed Helen came to know the house, and the garden, and the white gate quite well, and so did many other little boys and girls who lived in the same town. I said that all the houses in the street had gardens and gates, but I made a mistake, there was one house that had no garden and no gaţe; it was, perhaps, hardly a house, it was a shop-a toy-shop, and as it stood at the corner of Miss Stainton's street, Helen and Arthur had to pass and repass it every day. They did not go into it on that first day when Helen went to school; but they went in very often afterwards, so I will tell you now what sort of a shop it was. There were steps up to the door—a good many steps, and rather steep ones; and when you did get to the door it was only half a door after all. Helen could not open even half a door, but Arthur could. He used to give a hard push, the door flew open, and then a pleasant tinkling sound was heard Helen thought it such a very pleasant sound. It came from a little bell that was fastened inside the shop door, and it was meant to call the shopman to come into the shop. He did not always come just directly, but Helen and Arthur were glad of that; they liked to have time to look about them and make up their minds what they would buy. There were so very many pretty things in that shop, that it was not easy to choose. I have been into a great many toy-shops in my life, and bought a great many toys and sweetmeats, but I have never anywhere else seen such toys or such sweetmeats as there were in that shop. The bull's eyes were so very red and clear and round, the sugar pincushions were sweeter than sugar pincushions ever are now, and the toys had something so very interesting about them. Near the shop door there was a long low stool, and on the stool stood a tray quite full of penny books, bound in red, and blue, and yellow, and with a picture on the outside of every one. Helen was just tall enough to reach the tray, and though she thought the |