erhaps we too shall reach it some day," they said.

IN THE MOONLIGHT.

He picked a buttercup, and held it up to her chin. "Do you like
butter?" he asked.

"Butter!" she exclaimed. "They are not made into butter. They are made
into crowns for the Queen; she has a new one every morning."

"I'll make you a crown," he said. "You shall wear it to-night."

"But where will my throne be?" she asked.

"It shall be on the middle step of the stile by the corn-field."

So when the moon rose I went out to see.

He wore a red jacket and his cap with the feather in it. Round her head
there was a wreath of buttercups; it was not much like a crown. On one
side of the wreath there were some daisies, and on the other was a
little bunch of blackberry-blossom.

"Come and dance in the moonlight," he said; so she climbed up and over
the stile, and stood in the corn-field holding out her two hands to
him. He took them in his, and then they danced round and round all down
the pathway, while the wheat nodded wisely on either side, and the
poppies awoke and wondered. On they went, on and on through the
corn-field towards the broad green meadows stretching far into the
distance. On and on, he shouting for joy, and she laughing out so
merrily that the sound travelled to the edge of the wood, and the
thrushes heard, and dreamed of Spring. On they went, on and on, and
round and round, he in his red jacket, and she with the wild flowers
dropping one by one from her wreath. On and on in the moonlight, on and
on till they had danced all down the corn-field, till they had crossed
the green meadows, till they were hidden in the mist beyond.

That is all I know; but I think that in the far far off somewhere,
where the moon is shining, he and she still dance along a corn-field,
he in his red jacket, and she with the wild flowers dropping from her
hair.

THE POOR LITTLE DOLL.

It was a plain little doll that had been bought for sixpence at a stall
in the market-place. It had scanty hair and a weak composition face, a
calico body and foolish feet that always turned inwards instead of
outwards, and from which the sawdust now and then oozed. Yet in its
glass eyes there was an expression of amusement; they seemed to be
looking not at you but through you, and the pursed-up red lips were
always smiling at what the glass eyes saw.

"Well, you _are_ a doll," the boy said, looking up from his French
exercise. "And what are you staring