at me for--is there anything
behind?" he asked, looking over his shoulder. The doll made no answer.
"And whatever are you smiling for?" he asked; "I believe you are always
smiling. I believe you'd go on if I didn't do my exercise till next
year, or if the cat died, or the monument tumbled down." But still the
doll smiled in silence, and the boy went on with his exercise.
Presently he looked up again and yawned. "I think I'll go for a
stroll," he said, and put his book by. "I know what I'll do," he said,
suddenly; "I'll take that doll and hang it up to the apple tree to
scare away the sparrows." And calling out, "Sis, I have taken your
doll; I'm going to make a scarecrow of it," he went off to the garden.

His sister rushed after him, crying out, "Oh, my poor doll! oh, my dear
little doll! What are you doing to it, you naughty boy?"

"It's so ugly," he said.

"No, it is not ugly," she cried.

"And it's so stupid,--it never does anything but smile,--it can't even
grow,--it never gets any bigger."

"Poor darling doll," Sis said, as she got it once more safely into her
arms, "of course you can't grow, but it is not your fault, they did not
make any tucks in you to let out."

"And it's so unfeeling. It went smiling away like anything when I could
not do my French."

"It has no heart. Of course it can't feel."

"Why hasn't it got a heart?"

"Because it isn't alive. You ought to be sorry for it, and very, very
kind to it, poor thing."

"Well, what is it always smiling for?"

"Because it is so good," answered Sis, bursting into tears. "It is
never bad-tempered; it never complains, and it never did anything
unkind," and, kissing it tenderly, "you are always good and sweet," she
said, "and always look smiling, though you must be very unhappy at not
being alive."

THE VIOLETS.

The sun came out and shone down on the leafless trees that cast hardly
any shadows on the pathway through the woods.

"Surely the Spring is coming," the birds said; "it must be time to wake
the flowers."

The thrush, and the lark, and the linnet sang sweetly. A robin flew up
from the snow, and perched upon a branch; a little ragged boy at the
end of the wood stopped and listened.

"Surely the Spring is coming," he too said; "and mother will get well."

The flowers that all through the Winter had been sleeping in the ground
heard the birds, but they were drowsy, and longed to sleep on. At last
the snowdrops came up and looked s