here's the little queen?--where's her majesty?--where's
Ally?"

A golden head of curls was, at this instant, thrust timidly in at the
door, and I caught a passing glimpse of a pair of great blue eyes; but
the head, curls, eyes, and all, instantly vanished, though a little fat
dimpled hand was seen holding on to the door, and swinging it back and
forward. "Ally, dear, come in!" said the mother, in a tone of
encouragement. "Come in, Ally! come in," was repeated in various tones,
by each child; but brother Tom pushed open the door, and taking the
little recusant in his arms, brought her fairly in, and deposited her on
her father's knee. She took firm hold of his coat, and then turned and
gazed shyly upon me--her large splendid blue eyes gleaming through her
golden curls. It was evident that this was the pet lamb of the fold, and
she was just at that age when babyhood is verging into childhood--an age
often indefinitely prolonged in a large family, where the universal
admiration that waits on every look, and motion, and word of _the baby_,
and the multiplied monopolies and privileges of the baby estate, seem,
by universal consent, to extend as long and as far as possible. And why
not thus delay the little bark of the child among the flowery shores of
its first Eden?--defer them as we may, the hard, the real, the cold
commonplace of life comes on all too soon!

"This is our New Year's gift," said Winthrop, fondly caressing the curly
head. "Ally, tell the gentleman how old you are."

"I s'all be four next New 'Ear's," said the little one, while all the
circle looked applause.

"Ally, tell the gentleman what you are," said brother Ned.

Ally looked coquettishly at me, as if she did not know whether she
should favor me to that extent, and the young princess was further
solicited.

"Tell him what Ally is," said the oldest sister, with a patronizing air.

"Papa's New 'Ear's pesent," said my little lady, at last.

"And mamma's, too!" said the mother gently, amid the applauses of the
admiring circle.

Winthrop looked apologetically at me, and said, "We all spoil
her--that's a fact--every one of us down to Rover, there, who lets her
tie tippets round his neck, and put bonnets on his head, and hug and
kiss him, to a degree that would disconcert any other dog in the world."

If ever beauty and poetic grace was an apology for spoiling, it was in
this case. Every turn of the bright head, every change of the dimpled
face and