her first act was to unlock the
door of the children's prison. And her next was to pounce upon them
with even more vigor than when she emerged from it in the afternoon.
For there they lay asleep on the carpet, Jane in a purple robe, and
Sarah in a green, their hands and feet invisible by reason of the
great length of their garments.

"Don't hurt them, Mary," said Mr. Pike. For she was hustling off the
precious robes before the little girls were fairly awake; and they
might have fared hardly, had not the kind man been present to see that
justice was done; to wit, that they were compensated for their
imprisonment by pockets full of cakes and fruit, and sent home to
their mother without delay. That happy woman did not send them
supperless to bed, nor say a word about punishing them, either then or
afterwards. Perhaps she guessed that their punishment had already been
sufficiently severe.

"O, mother," said Jane, "at first we didn't dare to stir or speak, for
fear the crazy lady was listening; and she seemed angry enough to kill
us. I felt as if my hair was turning gray, and Sarah looked as white
as the wall. Well, after a great many hours, we began to look about
the room, and we saw those queer gowns she knits, hanging in a row;
and we got up and looked at them. By and by we got so tired doing
nothing, that we took them down and tried them on, and played we were
the saints. We tried to fly, but the old things were so heavy and
long, that we couldn't even jump. And after a while we were so tired
that we lay down and went to sleep, and never woke till Mrs. Pike came
home. O, but 'twas the lonesomest, longest, dreariest afternoon we
ever, ever knew--wasn't it, Sarah?"

This was the story, with variations, which the Holmes girls had to
tell to their mates the next day, and the next, and so on, until it
ceased to be a novelty.

But Mrs. Pike's prisoners were heroines, in the estimation of the
village girls and boys, for more than one year, and doubtless still
remember and tell to their children the story of their afternoon in
the Cave of Machpelah.

M. R. W.

WAR AND PEACE.

WAR.

The warrior waves his standard high,
His falchion flashes in the fray;
He madly shouts his battle-cry,
And glories in a well-fought day.
But Famine's at the city gate,
And Rapine prowls without the walls;
The city round lies desolate,
Wh