eam:

She saw an ancient city, and a quiet river winding near it along
the plain, and up the stream went slowly gliding a boat with a
merry party of children on board--she could hear their voices and
laughter like music over the water--and among them was another
little Alice, who sat listening with bright eager eyes to a tale
that was being told, and she listened for the words of the tale,
and lo! it was the dream of her own little sister. So the boat
wound slowly along, beneath the bright summer-day, with its merry
crew and its music of voices and laughter, till it passed round
one of the many turnings of the stream, and she saw it no more.

Then she thought, (in a dream within the dream, as it were,) how
this same little Alice would, in the after-time, be herself a
grown woman: and how she would keep, through her riper years, the
simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would
gather around her other little children, and make their eyes
bright and eager with many a wonderful tale, perhaps even with
these very adventures of the little Alice of long-ago: and how
she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure
in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the
happy summer days.

[Illustration]

happy summer days.

THE END.

* * * * *

_POSTSCRIPT._

_The profits, if any, of this book will be given to Children's
Hospitals and Convalescent Homes for Sick Children; and the
accounts, down to June 30 in each year, will be published in the
St. James's Gazette, on the second Tuesday of the following
December._

_P.P.S.--The thought, so prettily expressed by the little boy, is
also to be found in Longfellow's "Hiawatha," where he appeals to
those who believe_

"_That the feeble hands and helpless,_
_Groping blindly in the darkness_,
_Touch_ GOD'S _right hand in that darkness_,
_And are lifted up and strengthened_."

* * * * *

"Who will Riddle me the How and the Why?"

_So questions one of England's sweetest singers. The "How?" has
already been told, after a fashion, in the verses prefixed to
"Alice in Wonderland"; and some other memories of that happy
summer day are set down, for those who care to see them, in this
little book--the germ that was to grow into the published volume.
But the "Why?" cannot, and need not, be put into words. Those for
whom a child's mind is