ng a most
lugubrious expression; but whereas their distress was plainly mental,
her's was physical, drawn forth by pain.

"Old mammy has an attack of her pet bunion," I said, "and I suppose
that the children are, in consequence, debarred from their walk, and
they have but just come out. Poor little things! What do you say,
Bessie, to taking them with us? They would be enchanted."

"So should I. By all means let us take them," answered Bessie, who had
a love for children and their company, only second to my own.

"O, sister Amy!" cried both the little ones, dropping the
perambulators, and rushing up to us as soon as their eyes fell upon us,
"Mammy's bunion hurts so, she can't take us to walk, and it's such a
lovely day, and we want to go Jim's peanut-stand."

And the ever ready tears rushed to the eyes of Allie, who was prone to
weep upon slight provocation; and even Daisy, who was more
philosophical, though younger, looked heart-broken.

Sunshine speedily succeeded the showers, however, for my proposal that
they should accompany us was received with rapture; and, taking their
dolls into their arms, they abandoned the perambulators to the care of
mammy, who hobbled towards home with them. This bunion was mammy's
choice grievance, and she doubtless suffered much from it; but it was
an article of the family faith, that, when for any reason she was
disinclined to take her walks abroad with the children, the bunion
sympathized with this reluctance, and crippled her to an unusual
extent.

"And where do you want to go?" I asked of the beaming pair, who were
now hanging, the one on Bessie's arm, the other on mine. "Bessie and I
do not much care which way we go."

"Oh," said Daisy, ecstatically, "if you would only take us to Jim's
peanut-stand! Mother said we might go, and then mammy couldn't take
us."

"It's not fash'nable, but it's very respectable, Amy," said Allie,
impressively.

"But we cannot go to a peanut-stand, even though it belongs to Jim," I
expostulated.

"But it's not in the street; it's--you know Johnny, the flower-man,
sister?" said Allie.

"Johnny the flower-man" was a German florist on a small scale, who had
a little glass-enclosed stand on the corner of the avenue next to that
on which we lived, and who was extensively patronized by our family and
many of our neighbors. His box of a place, cosey, warm, and fragrant,
was a favorite resort of our children; and much of their pocket-money
went to t