"Oh, Toby, my dear old Toby, you wise and wonderful Pug!

"Don't struggle off yet, stay on my knee for a bit, you'll be much
hotter in the fender, and I want to give you a great, big hug.

"What are you turning round and round for? you'll make yourself giddy,
Toby. If you're looking for your tail, it is there, all right.

"You can't see it for yourself because you're so fat, and because it is
curled so tight.

"I dare say you could play with it, like Kitty, when you were a pup, but
it must be a long time now since you've seen it.

"It's rather rude of you, Mr. Pug, to lie down with your back to me, and
a grunt, but I know you don't mean it.

"I wanted to hug you, Toby, because I do thank you for giving me such
good advice, and I know every word of it's true.

"I mean to try hard to follow it, and I'll tell you what I shall do.

"Nurse wants to put bitter stuff on the tips of my fingers, to cure me
of biting them, and now I think I shall let her.

"I know they're not fit to be seen, but she says they would soon become
better.

"I mean to keep my hands behind my back a good deal till they're well,
and to hold my head up, and turn out my toes; and every time I give way
to one of my tricks, I shall go and stand (_on both legs_) before the
picture, and confess it to great-great-grandmamma.

"Just fancy if I've no tricks left this time next year, Toby! Won't that
show how clever we are?

"I for trying so hard to do what I'm told, and you for being so wise
that people will say--'That sensible pug cured that silly little girl
when not even her mother could mend her.'

"--Ah! Bad Dog! Where are you slinking off to?--Oh, Toby, darling! do,
_do_ take a little of your own good advice, and try to cure yourself of
lying in the fender!"

[Illustration: THE OWL IN THE IVY BUSH]

THE OWL IN THE IVY BUSH;

OR,

THE CHILDREN'S BIRD OF WISDOM.

INTRODUCTION.

"Hoot toots, man, yon's a queer bird!"

_Bonnie Scotland._

I AM an Owl; a very fluffy one, in spite of all that that Bad
Boy pulled out! I live in an Ivy Bush. Children are nothing to me,
naturally, so it seems strange that I should begin, at my time of life,
to observe their little ways and their humours, and to give them good
advice.

And yet it is so. I am the Friend of Young People. In my flight abroad I
watch them. As I sit meditating in my Ivy Bush, it is their little
matters which I turn over in my fluffy head. I