harsh as Helen's, but disagreeable enough to make Frank start and cry out with surprise. He did not let go of the clock, however, but held it even tighter, and began to look at it more closely.

"Magic clocks! magic clocks!" said the old man; and as he spoke these words, he disappeared from sight. Big box, leathern straps, old man, sunny smile-all had vanished from under the children's very eyes, as suddenly as if the earth had opened and swallowed him up.

"Why! where 's he gone!" cried Elizabeth. Helen began to cry.

"He's a witch," she said.

a fact.

Anyhow, we have the clocks, and we did n't have to pay the old fellow anything." "Dong! dong! dong!" said his clock, in a loud, discordant note. This time Frank himself was a little frightened. He put his clock down a little apart from the others, stepped back a few paces, thrust his hands into his pockets and began to whistle.

"They seem to strike every few minutes," he said, "without any sort of time about it. That's queer." "Let's keep perfectly still and watch them," said James, "and see if they 'll do anything." Five minutes, ten, fifteen passed. Not a sound

-a witch is a woman!"

gently.

began Elizabeth,

"Bang! bang! bang!" went James's clock, just as Helen's had done when she spoke unkindly. James set it down on the ground, close to the fence, and stepped away from it a few feet. Helen and Elizabeth put theirs down in a line with it. Frank still held his in his hands, and was looking ail about for the old man; up and down the street, even into the sky overhead. But there was not a trace of a human being in the street; not a cloud in the sky overhead.

"Well, it does look like magic!" he said, "that's

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"Well, of course you have," broke in Helen; we all have been thinking! we 're not ninnies." "Whang! whang! whang!" went Helen's clock in a tone so spiteful and hateful that all four of the children jumped.

"That's it! I knew it!" said Elizabeth. "I know what the magic is. The clocks will strike in that harsh way when we say mean, hateful things, and they 'll make a musical sound when we say pleasant things, and that 'll remind us all the time." "I believe that's so," said Frank, thoughtfully.

"I wish the old man had n't gone. We don't know how to wind them up. They're real beauties."

"There is n't any keyhole in them," said James, who had been looking his over again, with close scrutiny.

"I believe they don't need to be wound up," said Elizabeth. "I think they'll keep on going always. They are n't really clocks at all. They are just magic things, like the things in the 'Arabian Nights.""

"That's so," said Frank. "Let's take them into the house, and show them to Mamma. I wonder if she will let us keep them."

"I think she will," said Helen, who was quite subdued by this time. "I think she 'll be glad to keep anything that will make me speak pleasantly when I feel cross; and, as long as I live, I never want to hear another sound like that last loud one that my clock gave."

"Nor I," said Frank.

"Nor I," said James.

"I liked the sound mine made," said Elizabeth; "it was just like music."

"Well, I suppose it always will be, Lizzie," said the other children, all speaking together; "because you are always so sweet and good-natured, you know."

Upon which all four of the clocks struck together three notes, so musical and sweet you would have said fairy-bells must have been ringing in the air.

What the children's mother said when she saw the clocks, I do not know; but she thought the children had imagined all about the clocks striking; for it was a very queer thing, that no matter how loudly the clocks struck, nobody but their owners could hear the sounds. At first this used to frighten the children, especially Helen, whose clock, I am sorry to say, had to strike loudly and harshly many times in a week. But more and more they came to feel that the clocks were their friends; and that in some mysterious way which they could not understand, the old man who had brought them must be their friend too. "I think he 'll be back again some day," said Elizabeth, one evening when they all had been

having a fine play together, and each one of them had been trying to make all the others have a good time, and the little clocks had all rung out together a lovely chime of sweet " Kling-a-linglings." "I think he'll come back to see whether we 've been helped by the clocks or not."

"I think so, too," said Frank; "and if he does, I tell you, I'm going to grip his coat, and hold him tight till he 's answered all our questions."

"I'll be afraid to see him," sighed poor little Helen. "I have such a dreadful temper. But I do try very hard to conquer it, nobody knows how hard, and I don't mean ever to stop trying."

"Kling-a-kling-ling! kling-ling! ling ling," said Helen's clock, which she had under her arm. She hardly ever stirred without it, she was so anxious to be reminded always when she spoke crossly. "There! That's a comfort!" she exclaimed. "It has n't made so sweet a sound as that for three days."

"No wonder," said Frank, thoughtlessly; you've been a perfect spit-fire these last three days; I've wondered what ailed you."

Helen's eyes filled with tears, and she was just about to make some angry reply, when "Bang! bang! bang!" came from Frank's chamber window, which stood wide open. His clock was standing on the window-sill.

"I was caught that time," said Frank. "Never mind, Helen. I did n't mean to make you feel badly. I am very sorry I said it."

"Kling-a-ling," said the little clock, in a gentle, soft note.

"Does n't it sound like all right,' when they ring that way?" said Elizabeth. "It is almost like a real voice speaking. I just wish the old man would come back!" she continued. "I'd like to thank him. We never thanked him, you know. He vanished so quickly."

"I think he'll come," replied Frank. "Magicians always do come back, in fairy stories. Don't you know, in so many stories it says, 'And the magician re-appeared?'

"That's so!" echoed James, "I'm sure he'll come back."

a little house at the foot of the hill, said:

Barty O'Flanigan was a small boy with a big basket and a bigger voice, while his brogue was something wonderful to hear.

"It's the foine fat turrkey the misthress is afther promisin' me fur me Thanksgivin' I'm wantin'," replied Barty. "Shure, did n't I ketch her ould horrse as was afther runnin' away, an' hould him till the arrums iv me was broke intirely? An' sez the misthress to me, sez she, 'Barty,' sez she, ' come up an' take your pick iv me foine fat turrkeys fur your Thanksgivin' dinner,' sez she. An' it 's here I am, Miss, be the same token."

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Miss Sarah Wilhelmina remembered her aunt's promise. 'But Tim has gone to the station," she said. "You'll have to come again when he can catch one for you."

"An' why could n't I ketch it meself, an' me mother waitin' to pluck the feathers aff it, an' the misthress sayin' I could have me pick?" queried Barty insinuatingly.

"I don't know whether you could catch one, Barty; you 're so small," said Sarah Wilhelmina doubtfully. "The legs ov me is long," said Barty, displaying them with pride, "an' I can ketch any thing at all, so me mother sez― barrin' the maysles."

Now Sarah Wilhelmina was in a hurry, for she was going away to spend Thanksgiving; and Martha Washington was down cellar and Mancy had gone on an errand.

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"I know Aunt Doxy would n't wish him to be disappointed," she said to herself; and then she added aloud, Oh, well, Barty; you may catch one if you can; all the turkeys are out in the field”; and with that, Sarah Wilhelmina rushed off to her train, while Barty betook himself to the field where the doomed Thanksgiving turkeys were enjoying the frosty November air.

Two hours afterward Miss Eudoxia Appleby, the mistress of Pine Hill Farm, reached home with her small niece, Rebecca Ellen, and her nephew Thaddeus.

"Better 'vite the people at the cottage; then 't would n't be lonesome."

Aunt Doxy spoke severely, almost sharply. "Becky," she said, "those people in the cottage are not such as I approve of, and neither of you children must even go near the fence."

Nobody in Cressbrook knew just what to think of the "cottage people," as Aunt Doxy called them. They had taken the little house in the early spring, and had added peaks and gables and little piazzas to it, and had painted it in red and olive and yellow, until Aunt Doxy declared it a dreadful sight to see.

And she did n't like the looks of the people any better. They wore fantastic finery and appeared as if they were always going to a fancy-dress ball. The man who took care of their horse and cow had been seen in a Roman toga. The lady of the house fed the chickens in a Mother Hubbard dress of sea-green organdie, with a poke bonnet on her head and a ridiculous dove perched on her shoulder. And the children a boy and girl of about the same ages as Thaddy and Becky— looked like a little grandfather and grandmother who had just stepped out of some old pictureframe,—or so Aunt Doxy thought. She even contemplated building a very high fence between the two gardens, lest Becky and Thaddy should take an interest in the small antique-looking persons who lived in the queer cottage.

Of course they took an interest in them, and many stolen glances besides; they soon found out in some way that the children at the cottage were named Rupert and Marguerite, and that they were kind and pleasant playmates.

But in the midst of the children's horrifying assertion to Aunt Doxy, that they did n't believe Rupert and Marguerite were very bad children after all, there came a revelation that almost took the good lady's breath away.

Emancipation, or Mancy, was the very black daughter of the equally black Martha Washington, whom Miss Eudoxia had imported from the South for household " helps soon after the war. And Mancy now burst, almost breathless, into the room with the cry:

“Oh, Miss Doxy! de Princess gone!"