re observed that his mother was endeavoring to suppress a smile.
She seemed to try very hard, but she could not succeed in keeping
perfectly sober.

"What are you laughing at, mother?" asked Rollo.

Here Mrs. Holiday could no longer restrain herself, but laughed
outright.

"Is it about the Dutch women skating to market?" asked Rollo.

"I think they must look quite funny, at any rate," said Mrs. Holiday.

What Mrs. Holiday was really laughing at was to hear Rollo talk about
"when he was a boy." But the fact was, that Rollo had now travelled
about so much, and taken care of himself in so many exigencies, that he
began to feel quite like a man. And indeed I do not think it at all
surprising that he felt so.

"Which would you do, mother," said Rollo, "if you were I? Would you
rather go in the summer or in the winter?"

"I would ask uncle George," said Mrs. Holiday.

So Rollo went to find his uncle George.

Rollo was at this time at Morley's Hotel, in London, and he expected to
find his uncle George in what is called the coffee room. The coffee room
in Morley's Hotel is a very pleasant place. It fronts on one side upon a
very busy and brilliant street, and on another upon a large open square,
adorned with monuments and fountains. On the side towards the square is
a bay window, and near this bay window were two or three small tables,
with gentlemen sitting at them, engaged in writing. There were other
tables along the sides of the room and at the other windows, where
gentlemen were taking breakfast. Mr. George was at one of the tables
near the bay window, and was busy writing.

Rollo went to the place, and standing by Mr. George's side, he said in
an under tone,--

"Uncle George."

Every body speaks in an under tone in an English coffee room. They do
this in order not to interrupt the conversation, or the reading, or the
writing of other gentlemen that may be in the room.

"Wait a moment," said Mr. George, "till I finish this letter."

So Rollo turned to the bay window and looked out, in order to amuse
himself with what he might observe in the street, till his uncle George
should be ready to talk with him.

He saw the fountains in the square, and a great many children playing
about the basins. He saw a poor boy at a crossing brushing the pavement
industriously with an old broom, and then holding out his hand to the
people passing by, in hopes that some of them would give him a
halfpenny. He saw a policeman