wo nickels make a dime, and their golden rule is to do
others as others would do them. The other boy (he has been christened
Matthew, after me) has a pair of large, round, deep-blue eyes,
expressive of all those emotions which a keen, active fancy begets.

Matthew can never get his fill of fairy tales, and how the dear little
fellow loves Santa Claus! He sees things at night; he will not go to
bed in the dark; he hears and understands what the birds and crickets
say, and what the night wind sings, and what the rustling leaves tell.
Wherever Matthew goes he sees beautiful pictures and hears sweet music;
to his impressionable soul all nature speaks its wisdom and its poetry.
God! how I love that boy! And he shall never starve! A goodly share
of what I have shall go to him! But this clause in my will, which the
Judge recently drew for me, will, I warrant me, give the dear child the
greatest happiness:

"Item. To my beloved grandnephew and namesake, Matthew, I do bequeath
and give (in addition to the lands devised and the stocks, bonds and
moneys willed to him, as hereinabove specified) the two mahogany
bookcases numbered 11 and 13, and the contents thereof, being volumes
of fairy and folk tales of all nations, and dictionaries and other
treatises upon demonology, witchcraft, mythology, magic and kindred
subjects, to be his, his heirs, and his assigns, forever."

III

THE LUXURY OF READING IN BED

Last night, having written what you have just read about the benefits
of fairy literature, I bethought me to renew my acquaintance with some
of those tales which so often have delighted and solaced me. So I
piled at least twenty chosen volumes on the table at the head of my
bed, and I daresay it was nigh daylight when I fell asleep. I began my
entertainment with several pages from Keightley's "Fairy Mythology,"
and followed it up with random bits from Crofton Croker's "Traditions
of the South of Ireland," Mrs. Carey's "Legends of the French
Provinces," Andrew Lang's Green, Blue and Red fairy books, Laboulaye's
"Last Fairy Tales," Hauff's "The Inn in the Spessart," Julia Goddard's
"Golden Weathercock," Frere's "Eastern Fairy Legends," Asbjornsen's
"Folk Tales," Susan Pindar's "Midsummer Fays," Nisbit Bain's "Cossack
Fairy Tales," etc., etc.

I fell asleep with a copy of Villamaria's fairy stories in my hands,
and I had a delightful dream wherein, under the protection and guidance
of my fairy godmother, I underto