of my story," my friend always
says when he reaches this point. "The next morning was clear, and I
happened to be up early. Old Mrs. Robin had begun her plaintive call.
Suddenly I saw a great many robins--not less than twenty, I should
say--that had come together from some place, and rested upon the
branches of a great elm-tree that was only a few yards away from the
fir-tree. Of all the noises I ever heard from birds, those that these
robins made were the strangest. At last they were quiet, and two of them
flew off to the fir-tree, and cautiously made their way to the nest.
Mrs. Robin looked at them, and sang a little trill. One of the visitors,
with much shaking of his head, sang something in reply, and then the
other one did the same thing. Mrs. Robin repeated her trill, and then
she hopped up to the branch above, and sang another note or two, and the
smaller of the two robins took his place beside her. Then the other
robin flew away to his companions, and after singing a little, they all
went off together.

"When I looked back to the nest, Mrs. Robin sat there perfectly quiet,
and, not more than a minute after, the new Mr. Robin brought a worm, and
he was from that time until the little ones got their feathers and flew
off as kind and attentive to Mrs. Robin as had been poor old club-footed
Mr.

"Now isn't this a pretty love story?" my friend inquires, and of course
you say it is, and then ask him why he laughed, and what his mother's
lace collar had to do with it, and he will answer you in this way:

"Look in the nest. See what lies on the bottom, where the little robins
nestled. I got the nest after they all flew away together, and there in
the bottom was my mother's lace collar, not good to wear any longer, so
I have let it stay there ever since. Do you suppose young robins ever
had such a costly bed?"

CHARLEY BENNET'S GHOST STORY.

BY MRS. MARGARET EYTINGE.

"It is a sin to steal a pin,
As well as any greater thing,"

sang little Al Smith, in a loud, shrill voice.

"Very good sentiment, but very poor rhyme," drawled Hen Rowe (whose
father was a poet), patting the singer's flaxen head in a patronizing
manner.

"Talking of stealing," said Charley Bennet, dropping the pumpkin he was
turning into a lantern, "did I ever tell you fellers about the time I
went down to old Pop Robins's to steal apples, and came back past the
barn where the horse-thief hung himself years and years ago, 'cause he