paint.

VII.

"It is beautiful! Is it not, Cornelia?" she said, as she threw herself
back in the chair. "Uncle will never say again that I cannot paint.
Perhaps it is more blue than Col. Fraser's mustache; but it is all the
prettier for that."

[Illustration]

Bessie remembered, too, that her mamma had once read to her a story
about a man with a blue beard. "So people _do_ have blue mustaches
sometimes," thought she.

What did Uncle Frank say when he saw what she had done? I am sorry to
say he did not agree with Bessie that the picture was improved. At first
he was vexed; then he laughed; then he gave Bessie a kiss.

[Illustration]

TOO MANY PRESENTS.

DID you ever hear of the boy who had a drum and a trumpet and a
rocking-horse for his Christmas presents, and cried, after all, because
Santa Claus had given his sister a doll, and hadn't given him one?

I have heard of that boy; but, to tell the truth, I doubt the whole
story. It is a little too tough for me. I don't believe there ever was
such a boy; and I won't believe in him until I see him.

But I did know a little boy who _almost_ cried because he had _no_
Christmas present. He was a good boy too. He would have been pleased
with any thing; and it was too bad that Santa Claus forgot to bring some
little gift for him.

The queerest case, though, is that of the little boy whose picture we
have here. You see him just as he looked on Christmas morning, with his
presents all around him; and yet you see he does not look happy. What
can be the matter with the child?

Ah! the trouble is, that he has too many presents. He has so many that
he doesn't know what to do with them. He doesn't know which to play with
first. He is afraid all the time that some of them will get lost. And
so, by trying to enjoy them all at once, he fails to enjoy them at all.

Poor boy! he is having a hard time of it, and I pity him very much. If I
were going to prescribe for him, this is what I should say, "Tom, my
boy" (I know by his looks that his name is Tom), "don't be cast down.
I'll show you the way out of your trouble. Your case is pretty bad; but
there's a remedy. What you want to do is to _give away_ something.

"Now, there's that doll that you are hugging so closely. What does a boy
like you want of a doll? That must have been meant for some little girl.
It was sent to you on purpose to give away. Of course it was.

"Then there are those two wagons. You don't wan