e tears rolling down his
cheeks, when the door opened and Mother stood there! She had come back
sooner than was expected; and before Charlie quite realized all that was
happening, Nurse had buttoned on his dry boots, and Mother and he were
walking quickly towards the Home Fields. How the children did scream
with delight when they found that Mother herself was going to picnic
with them.

"You must thank Charlie that I am here," said Mother. "If he had not
kept his promise to Nurse I should not have known where to find you;"
and Mother looked fondly at her honest little boy.

"You see, I was obliged to," said Charlie simply: "I had given my word."

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INDUSTRIOUS JACK.

Jack, the lock-keeper's son, does not idle away his time after his day's
work is done. He is very fond of boat-making; and although he has only
some rough pieces of wood and an old pocket-knife, he is quite clever in
constructing tiny vessels. Perhaps, some day, he may become a master
boat-builder. Perseverance and the wise employment of spare moments will
work wonders.

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A VISIT TO NURSE.

It was indeed a treat for the four little Deverils when they received an
invitation from old Nurse to spend the day at her cottage. She had
lately married a gardener, and having no children of her own, she knew
no greater pleasure than to entertain the little charges she had once
nursed so faithfully. She always invited the children when the
gooseberries were ripe, and each child had a special bush reserved for
it by name; indeed, Nurse would have considered it "robbing the
innocent" had any one else gathered so much as one berry off those
bushes.

When they were tired of gooseberries, there was the swing under the
apple-tree, and such a tea before they went home! The more buttered
toast the children ate the better pleased was Nurse; and she brought
plateful after plateful to the table, till even Sydney's appetite was
appeased, and he felt the time had come for a little conversation.

"I'm going to be a sailor when I grow up, Nurse," he observed, "and I'll
take you a-sail in my ship. Gerry says he'll be a schoolmaster; he wants
to cane the boys, you know. Cyril has decided to be an omnibus
conductor, and Baby," he concluded, pointing his finger at the only girl
in the family, with a half-loving, half-contemptuous g