him some warm stockings instead of foolish toys.

The first thing the children had to do when they entered the school,
was to make their patchwork clothes, as I have said. Julia had got his
finished and was busily sewing on a red and green patchwork quilt,
in a tea-chest pattern, when, one day, the Mayor came to visit the
school. Just then his son did not happen to be serving a term there;
the Mayor never visited it with visitors of distinction when he was.

To-day he had a Chinese Ambassador with him. The Patchwork Woman sat
behind her desk on the platform and sewed patchwork, the Mayor in his
fine broadcloth sat one side of her, and the Chinese Ambassador, in
his yellow satin gown, on the other.

The Ambassador's name was To-Chum. The children could not help
stealing glances occasionally at his high eyebrows and braided queue,
but they cast their eyes on their sewing again directly.

The Mayor and the Ambassador staid about an hour; then after they had
both made some remarks--the Ambassador made his in Chinese; he could
speak English, but his remarks in Chinese were wiser--they rose to go.

Now, the door of the Patchwork School was of a very peculiar
structure. It was made of iron of a great thickness, and opened like
any safe door, only it had more magic about it than any safe door ever
had. At a certain hour in the afternoon, it shut of its own accord,
and opened at a certain hour in the morning, when the Patchwork Woman
repeated a formula before it. The formula did no good whatever at any
other time; the door was so constructed that not even its inventor
could open it after it shut at the certain hour of the afternoon,