ying. The objection to them is the
slight crackling noise which the leaves occasion as the individual turns
in bed, but this is no inconvenience at all; or if so in any degree, it
is an inconvenience which is overbalanced by the advantages of this most
luxurious couch."

"But how funny," said Malcolm, "to sleep on leaves! That's what the
Babes in the Wood did."

"No," replied Clara, very earnestly, "they didn't sleep _on_ leaves, you
know; but when they had laid down and gone to sleep, the robins came and
covered them with leaves."

"Yes," chimed in little Edith; "I like that way best, because they'd be
so cold in the woods."

"And that really was the case," said Miss Harson, after listening with a
smile to this discussion, "although there were probably leaves on the
ground for the children to lie upon. A bed of leaves is not a bad thing
where there are no mattresses, and such a bed is often used as a matter
of course. You will remember my reading to you about the beds which the
Finland mothers make for their children of the leaves of the
canoe-birch. 'Leafy beds' are no strange thing--not mere poetry."

CHAPTER XV.

_THE TENT AND THE LOCUSTS_.

There came a bright balmy day in May when the children found a
delightful surprise awaiting them. The tent in the woods, which had been
proposed on the day when birch-twigs were found to be eatable, was
almost forgotten--or if thought of, it was as a thing that could not
possibly be--when, on the day in question, Miss Harson took her charges
out as usual, and led them to a very pretty cleared space with a fringe
of rocks and trees all around it. But on this spot, which hitherto had
been quite bare, there now stood some sort of a little house different
from other houses and quite pretty.

"It's a tent!" exclaimed Malcolm. "Who put it there, I should like to
know, on _our_ land?"

"Are there gypsies here, Miss Harson?" whispered Clara, rather
fearfully.

But the young lady walked deliberately up to the entrance of the tent
and invited her little flock to come inside.

"I know the gentleman who had it put here," she said, "and he is quite
willing that we should use it; but he will not give any one else
this liberty."

"I think I know him too," said Malcolm as he walked in after Miss
Harson.

"And I!"--"And I!" exclaimed the little girls. "It is our own papa. How
very kind of him!"

"Yes," replied their governess; "he said, when I spoke of a tent, that
it wo