h circumstances, so the
words in the little note were few.

"You will give this to your mother when she comes in. See!--I will put
it on the mantelpiece," she said to Harold; "and you must not touch
these parcels until mother opens them herself. Yes; I will come again.
Now, good-by." Her bonnet was decidedly crooked as she stepped into the
carriage, her jacket was also much crumpled; but there was a very sweet
feel of little arms still round her neck, and she touched her hair and
cheeks with satisfaction, for they had been honored by many child
kisses.

"I believe she's just a fairy godmother," said Harold, as he watched the
carriage rolling away.

"I never seed the like in hall my born days," remarked the small
maid-of-all-work.

CHAPTER XIX.

"THE PRETTY LADY"

"Mother, mother, mother!"

"And look!--oh, do look at what I have got!" were the words that greeted
Mrs. Home, when, very tired, after a day of hard nursing with one of her
husband's sick parishioners, she came back.

The children ought to have been in bed, the baby fast asleep, the little
parlor-table tidily laid for tea: instead of which, the baby wailed
unceasingly up in the distant nursery, and Harold and Daisy, having
nearly finished Charlotte's sweeties, and made themselves very
uncomfortable by repeated attacks on the rich plum-cake, were now, with
very flushed cheeks, alternately playing with their toys and poking
their small fingers into the still unopened brown-paper parcels. They
had positively refused to go up to the nursery, and, though the gas was
lit and the blinds were pulled down, the spirit of disorder had most
manifestly got into the little parlor.

"Oh, mother!--what _do_ you think? The lovely lady!--the lady we met in
the park yesterday!--she has been, and she brought us _lots_ of
things--toys, and sweeties, and cakes, and--oh, mother, do look!"

Daisy presented her doll, and Harold blew some very shrill blasts from
his trumpet right up into his mother's eyes.

"My dear children," said Mrs. Home, "whom do you mean? where did you get
all these things? who has come here? Why aren't you both in bed? It is
long past your usual hour."

This string of questions met with an unintelligible chorus of replies,
in which the words "pretty lady," "Regent's Park," "father knew her,"
"we _had_ to sit up," so completely puzzled Mrs. Home, that had not her
eyes suddenly rested on the little note waiting for her on the
mantelpiece sh