o jump through the hoop.

As Tipkins and Trotkins grew older, their mother, Topsy, taught them to
hunt for mice in the big, dark barn, and to catch moles and
grasshoppers in the field. They had less and less time, as the days
went by, to play with their little mistress; and Alice found them so
sleepy, when they did have time, that at last she gave up trying to
teach them any new antics.

As the months passed by they grew sleek and fat. They were kittens no
longer, but had grown as large and could hunt as well as Mother Topsy;
and although they learned no new tricks now, the old ones, taught them
by their little mistress, were never forgotten by Tipkins and Trotkins.

ETHEL'S FRIENDS.

Ethel was a little girl who lived in the great city of New York, but
she loved the country very much and often wished that she could play in
the big, green fields or pick wild flowers in the wood. She remembered
one summer, when she was a very little girl, staying in the country for
ever so many days, almost a whole month, and having such a happy time
lying on the grass, listening to the birds, and watching the cows and
horses and sheep, the cunning little lambs, and the old white hen with
her brood of downy chicks. Oh, how she did wish that she could see
them all again! But the country was far, far away, and Ethel's papa
and mamma were too busy to take their little daughter there.

There was a place in the big city called Central Park that seemed to
Ethel like the country. She loved to go there, and had a happy time
watching the sparrows as they scratched for seeds and looked about for
crumbs, and trying to get the gray squirrels to come nearer and take
nuts from her hand. Here, some days, O happiest times of all! she
could lie with her rosy face buried in the short, green grass, and
press it close, oh! so close to the "great brown house," the home of
the flowers.

One sunshiny day in June Ethel had been playing in the park for a long
time. Though she had coaxed and coaxed the squirrels, they would not
come near; and though she had listened for a long time to the hoarse
croak of a frog, and watched and waited, and looked about with big
bright eyes, she could not get even so much as a peep at him. At last
she grew very tired and sat down upon a bench near by to rest before
going home. Scarcely was she seated when she heard some one call her
name. "Ethel! Ethel!" a sweet voice said. She looked all about but
could s