tches a fly upon the wing, follows it with her
pointing finger, and names it "bird." Her brother, who wants to play
with a bronze Japanese lobster, ask "Will you please let me have that
tiger?"

At times children give to a word that slight variety which is the most
touching kind of newness. Thus, a child of three asks you to save him.
How moving a word, and how freshly said! He had heard of the "saving" of
other things of interest--especially chocolate creams taken for
safe-keeping--and he asks, "Who is going to save me to-day? Nurse is
going out, will you save me, mother?" The same little variant upon
common use is in another child's courteous reply to a summons to help in
the arrangement of some flowers, "I am quite at your ease."

A child, unconscious little author of things told in this record, was
taken lately to see a fellow author of somewhat different standing from
her own, inasmuch as he is, among other things, a Saturday Reviewer. As
he dwelt in a part of the South-west of the town unknown to her, she
noted with interest the shops of the neighbourhood as she went, for they
might be those of the _fournisseurs_ of her friend. "That is his bread
shop, and that is his book shop. And that, mother," she said finally,
with even heightened sympathy, pausing before a blooming _parterre_ of
confectionery hard by the abode of her man of letters, "that, I suppose,
is where he buys his sugar pigs."

In all her excursions into streets new to her, this same child is intent
upon a certain quest--the quest of a genuine collector. We have all
heard of collecting butterflies, of collecting china-dogs, of collecting
cocked hats, and so forth; but her pursuit gives her a joy that costs her
nothing except a sharp look-out upon the proper names over all
shop-windows. No hoard was ever lighter than hers. "I began three weeks
ago next Monday, mother," she says with precision, "and I have got thirty-
nine." "Thirty-nine what?" "Smiths."

FELLOW TRAVELLERS WITH A BIRD, II.

The mere gathering of children's language would be much like collecting
together a handful of flowers that should be all unique, single of their
kind. In one thing, however, do children agree, and that is the
rejection of most of the conventions of the authors who have reported
them. They do not, for example, say "me is;" their natural reply to "are
you?" is "I are." One child, pronouncing sweetly and neatly, will have
nothing but the nom