run and sing too?" She sat down under the laburnum-tree, and
taking the two tiny hands in hers, began to pat them together, while she
went on with the "Butterfly's Ball," singing it now to the tune of a
certain hornpipe, which fitted it to perfection. She had not heard the
verses since she was a little girl, but she could never forget the
delight of her childhood.

"And there came the Beetle, so blind and so black,
Who carried the Emmet, his friend, on his back.
And there came the Gnat, and the Dragon-fly too,
With all their relations, green, orange, and blue.

"And there came the Moth--"

At this moment came something else, more welcome than the moth would
have been; for Rose appeared, bearing a mug in one hand, and in the
other--what?

"Cow!" cried Benny, sitting upright, and stretching out both arms in
rapture. "_My_ cow! mine! all mine!"

"Yes, your cow, dear, for now!" said Rose, setting the treasure down on
the table. "Look, Benny! she is such a good cow! She is going to give
you some milk,--nice, fresh milk!"

The brown crockery cow was indeed a milk-jug; and Benny's blue eyes and
Hildegarde's gray ones opened wide in amazement as Rose, grasping the
creature's tail and tilting her forward, poured a stream of milk from
her open mouth into the mug. The child laughed, and clapped his hands
with delight.

"Where did you get it?" asked Hildegarde in a low tone, as she held the
mug to Benny's lips.

"Saint Martha!" replied Rose, smiling. "It belonged to her grandmother.
She brought it down just now, and said she had seen many a child quieted
with it, and the little one would very likely be for crying at first, in
a strange place! Isn't it nice?"

"Nice!" said Hildegarde; "I never want to drink out of anything else but
a brown cow. Dear Martha! and observe the effect!"

Indeed, Benny was laughing, and patting the cow, and chattering to it,
as if no such thing as a gray rubber elephant had ever existed. So
fickle is childhood!

CHAPTER XII.

BENNY.

Benny took possession of his kingdom, and ruled it with a firm, though
for the most part an indulgent hand. Miss Wealthy succumbed from the
first moment, when he advanced boldly toward her, and laying a chubby
hand on her knee, said, "I like you. Is you' hair made of spoons? it is
all silver."

Martha was his slave, and lay in wait for him at all hours with
gingerbread-men and "cooky"-cows; while the two g