CHAPTER FOURTH.

THE MAGIC CIRCUS.

TEDDY was still in bed, though the doctor had said that very soon he
might have the big chair wheeled up to the window and sit there awhile.
Now he was propped up against the pillows playing with the paper circus
his mother had brought to him the day before.

His little cousin Harriett had come in yesterday to spend the afternoon
with him, and together they had cut out the figures--the clown, the
ring-master, the pretty lady on the white horse, the acrobat on his
coal-black steed, and all the rest.

This morning he had put some large books under the bedquilt, and
smoothed it over them so as to make a flat plane, and was amusing
himself setting the circus out, and arranging his soldiers in a long
procession as if they were the audience coming to see it.

He seemed so well entertained that his mother said she would go over to
the sewing-room for a little while to run up some seams on the machine.

When Teddy was left alone he still went on playing very happily, but as
he set out the soldiers two by two, he was really thinking of the
Counterpane Fairy and her wonderful stories.

The evening before he had fallen asleep while his mother was reading
something to his father (for they both sat in Teddy's room in the
evenings now that he was ill), and when he woke they were talking
together about him. They did not see that his eyes were open, so they