left, and, I suspect that all seemed as "vanity
of vanities" to poor Molly. Just then Fred, her favorite and only
remaining brother, came dancing down the path and stopped, amazed before
Molly's display of wealth.

[Illustration: SHE COULDN'T SPARE FREDDIE.]

Somehow the "choc'late ca'amels" tasted sweeter again when she shared
them with Fred, and she couldn't help saying, "Ain't they _boolicious_,
Freddie?"

She hadn't time to tell Freddie how she came possessed of all her
treasures, for there again appeared at the gate the same great man, with
his cry, "Brother for sale!"

"No, no!" screamed Molly, throwing her two fat arms round Fred, at the
same time crying, "Run away Freddie, quick! run away."

Now considering that Fred had the doll and the kitten in his lap, and
his sister's arms around his neck, it wasn't strange that the little
fellow didn't run.

"I'll give you ten dollars for this boy," said the great man, unwinding
Molly's arms, and picking fat Fred up, and thrusting him like a roll of
cotton batting under his arm.

Molly screamed and--and--well--she woke.

She hadn't been swinging on the gate at all; there wasn't any horrid,
_rusty_-faced man standing by her; she had been asleep in school and
dreaming.

But she couldn't believe it; and with all Miss Winche's kind coaxing,
she wouldn't lift her face from her desk, and would only sob, "I want my
Freddie! I want my Freddie!"

The funniest part of it was, the child hadn't been asleep five minutes.
She had been idly listening to a spelling class, and just after the
word "_sail_" dropped into a nap.

By the way, perhaps I should not omit to mention that before she went to
school that morning she had declared to her mother that boys were
_bothers_; no wonder! baby Willie, at breakfast, had punched his little
fist down into her mug, spilled the milk, and sent the mug crashing on
the floor. Johnny had taken the orange out of her sacque pocket, and she
had to let him have it because he was "a little fellow," and Harry and
Tommy had carried all the cookies to school in their pockets.

But now--after the dream, Molly hugged the baby; and she said
confidentially to mamma, "Isn't he sweet?--I don't think boys are a
bother, do you, mamma?"

And a little later, while rocking her old rag-doll, "mamma," said she,
"I won't ever swing on the front-gate again ever--ever--ever in my
life."

A STORY OF A CLOCK.

My real name was so short that I wa