one, out of the fringed
raiment of two or three. Honest was the pride with which I have
surveyed these industrious efforts, and sincere the thought that I
had really accomplished something. Depositing the various articles
where the wearers elect would find them, I have retired to rest;
almost angry with Mr. Smith, who was asleep hours before me--asleep
as unconcernedly as if an indestructible substance fabric had been
invented for children's clothing.

Well, after such a night's work, imagine me waking, with a
complacent and happy sensation that, my work having been _done_ on
the day before, the morning is open for new employment. Down stairs
I come, full of the thoughts of the confusion I shall heap on Mr.
Smith's head. He, observe, told me, as he left me to retire, that I
had much better go to bed, for all my work would amount to nothing
but loss of necessary rest. I am ready to show him triumphant
evidence to the contrary, in the clothes, as good as new, in which
his children are habited. Before I can speak, I discern a lurking
smile in his face. My boy Will stands in a sheepish posture, with
his back as close to the jam, as if he were a polypus growing there,
and his life depended upon the adhesion.

My eldest girl--another of the laboriously fitted out of the night
before, has a marvellous affection for the little stool, and the
skirt of her frock seems drawn about her feet in a most unbecoming
manner.

But the third, an inveterate little romp, unconscious of shame, is
curveting about in the most abandoned manner, utterly indifferent to
the fact she has--not, indeed, "a rag to her back"--for she is _all_
rags! One hour's play before my descent has utterly abolished all
traces of my industry, so far as she is concerned.

I expostulate--at first more in sorrow than in anger--but as Mr.
Smith's face expands into a broad laugh, it becomes more anger than
sorrow. The child on the stool looks as if she would laugh, if she
_dared_. Lifting her up suddenly, I discover that the whole front
breadth of her frock is burned--past redemption.

I say nothing--what _can_ I say? I have not words equal to the
emergency. And the boy--boys _are_ such copies of their fathers! He
actually forgets all embarrassment, and breaks out into a hearty
laugh. I jerk him forward.

Horror on horrors! The unveiling of the Bavarian statue, of which I
read an account in the newspapers the other day, is nothing to it.
The jamb, it appears, h