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me about in the oddest places, putting Fred's gravity and good humour to the sorest test possible, and I think both were equally relieved when the day arrived at last, and she was able to present it in due form. Fred had plenty of marbles of a better kind and more suitable for playing, but he did not vex his affectionate little sister by telling her so. For a long time I was kept in his desk with a funny jumble of other odds and ends not often wanted, but never exposed to view, for poor Fred on first returning to school had innocently exhibited me as an agate marble, fully believing I really was so. But a more knowing boy, the son of a working jeweller who was on the same form with him, soon undeceived him, and from that time, with natural disgust at having been "so green," as his schoolfellow said, Fred carefully buried me in the recesses of his desk, and showed me no more.

When he left school I went back among his other valuables, and was buried for many years in his old playbox. But one day I was rummaged out with a host of other antiquated things and laid on the table. A very smart young

lady in a gay muslin dress, plentifully be-dropped with knots of ribbon, seemed to be "tidying up" as she called it; a process that appeared to me to consist in routing out and clearing away all the old hoards, and making the room as bare as an empty shop.

"Oh dear," she laughed, as I tumbled out with the rest of the boyish treasures; "here's that wretched old marble, which was not agate after all. The little horror! Here, Jane, give it to Cook; she wanted a marble the other day to put into her tea-kettle, and this will be just the thing for her."

And so I was consigned to Cook, and for many months continued to roll and rattle about in the bottom of her horrid old black tea-kettle, accumulating all the disagreeable "fur," as she called it, that is generally found lining the inside of a kettle where the water in use is very hard. My pretty streaks and spots soon disappeared beneath this dreadful covering, and no one now-not even Fred Finekyn himself(far less the airyfied young lady, into whom my early admirer, Augusta, had merged), would have recognised the gay and polished marble

in the rough, stony-looking lump that made such a dull clatter in the kettle.

But all things come to an end, even long captivities, and so one happy day saw me, still an inhabitant of the old kettle, sold at the sale, which took place when the Finekyns went "abroad." After this I resided for some time at a marine store-shop, and there my house and I parted company, and I was sent once more into the world as a marble, for the kettle was sold elsewhere, and I was dropped out during the examination of the old woman purchaser. When I was picked up, the shopman soon finding out that I was worth looking at, cleaned me, and restored me to a faint likeness of my former show, and sold me for the reduced price of twopence to an eager school boy. After a good many vicissitudes and changes, I came into Frank Spenser's possession, and became, with the rest, an inmate of the toy-cupboard."

The Ball, spying another little marble rolling forward as if to speak, returned thanks to them for their three stories, and called on the Rocking-Horse to be the next entertainer.

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CHAPTER XI.

WHY THE ROCKING HORSE RAN AWAY.

COULD tell you lots of stories," said the Rocking Horse, stumbling and limping forward, as lightly as he could with his mutilated members, "for I have really seen so much of life, and have had so many little riders in turn. There was my first owner, dear bright golden-haired Charlie, "Bonnie Prince Charlie," as he was called by all, with his bright smile, and sunny eyes, and his musical laugh. He was going to be a knighterrant, and ride about all over the country, rescuing distressed damsels, and setting captives free, and fighting at least ten people at once! There was a pretty little girl, who used to come sometimes to spend the day with his sisters, and Charlie was very fond of her, calling her his princess. Little Julia was a nice child, and was never better pleased than when she

was mounted on me behind Charley, with her fat arms clasped tight round his waist. The stories that boy used to invent, surpassed any thing I ever heard before or since; I am sure he must have read a good deal, and remembered it all too, to be able to describe the things he did. And Julia used to cuddle up to him, and say what he bid her, for she was a sweet, docile little thing, but she did not understand a tenth part of what he told her, and she used to get so frightened, and cling so tight, and call out "O Charlie, don't rock so hard, please," when he grew excited and set me off at first rate speed. And then Charlie used to say, "You must not say that, Judy; you ought to say, Pray lessen your speed, gallant knight, your war charger is so fleet!" and Julia would say so, and all went smoothly enough till Charlie went off again full pelt, and then the whole thing was gone over again. But one day, one warm summer evening, Charlie was a little more wild than usual, and forgetting what he was about, he rocked too furiously, and down we all came together. It Idid not much matter to Charlie and me, for it

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