had to let him have it because he was "a little fellow," and Harry and
Tommy had carried all the cookies to school in their pockets.

But now--after the dream, Molly hugged the baby; and she said
confidentially to mamma, "Isn't he sweet?--I don't think boys are a
bother, do you, mamma?"

And a little later, while rocking her old rag-doll, "mamma," said she,
"I won't ever swing on the front-gate again ever--ever--ever in my
life."




A STORY OF A CLOCK.


My real name was so short that I was called Nancy, "for long." I was the
fourth child in a very large family. The three elder were a brother and
two sisters. The first, very quick at books and figures, finished his
education at an early age, and seemed to me about as old and dignified
as my father. My sisters, Sarah and Mary, were exemplary in school and
out. The former, at eight, read Virgil; painted "Our Mother's Grave" at
eleven--'twas an imaginary grave judging from the happy children
standing by; wrote rhymes for all the albums, printed verses on
card-board and kept on living. Mary read every book she could find; had
a prize at six years of age for digesting "Rollins' Ancient History;"
had great mathematical talent, and though she sighed in her fourteenth
year that she had grown old, yet continues to add to her age, being one
of the oldest professors in a flourishing college.