y this time, if you can come home without a single rent in your pretty
frock.'

"'Oh, yes, mamma!' she answered, 'I will take the most _paticularest_
care of it;' and she smoothed it softly down, and walked out with such
a funny, mincing step that I had to laugh.

"But the little monkey came home a sight to behold; the dress hung in
tatters, as if some wild animal had torn it in pieces.

"'Why!' I exclaimed, 'here's the rag bag walking in.'

"Mary looked in my face with a sweet, sorrowful expression, and tripping
close up to me, with a little, dancing step, on the tips of her toes,
said, 'Oh, mamma, I met with _such a unfortin_--I tore my frock; please
to excuse me.'

"I had to laugh--and seeing that, she concluded that her 'unfortin' was
rather a good joke--and went laughing and singing off to bed.

"But," Aunt Fanny goes on to say, "you dear little darlings, please
don't go to tearing your clothes for the fun of it--this winter at
least--as we have no time to mend them, while we are working for the
brave soldiers.

"After we are at peace, and all happy and comfortable, let's have a
grand tearing time together--because we shall be so glad. I promise that
you shall tear me into three-cornered pieces, or any other shape you
like, when that happy time comes; but now, my darlings, we must wear our
old clothes, and save our money to buy comforts for the defenders of the
flag. That's my opinion. What's yours? Please let me know in your
longest words, and see if I don't print them in a book some of these
days. That's all."

LITTLE SALLIE'S LONG WORDS:

A TRUE STORY.

One day little Sallie's mother was very ill indeed; she was lying on the
bed with a bandage dipped in ice water around her head, for her head was
throbbing and aching as if it were made entirely of double rows of
teeth, every one of them afflicted with a jumping, raging toothache,
and her little daughter felt so sorry for her, that she begged
permission to go to a shop and buy her a new head.

Sallie was an only child; she played little with other children, and she
was so accustomed to being constantly with her father and mother, and
other grown persons, that she talked in a very amusing and funny
fashion, for she would use very long words, perfectly understanding
their meaning, but with such comically strange jumblings and twistings,
and alterings of syllables, as to make it very difficult to preserve a
becoming gravity while listening to her. If