the proud boy; "it only takes a lot of
cowardice not to;" and then turning his eyes down again, he softly
walked away.

SEEKING THE VIOLETS.

All the wood had been blue with violets, but now they were nearly gone.
The birds sang louder and louder to keep them and to call them back,
but soon there was not a violet left in all the wood from end to end.
The snowdrops died, and the primrose faded, the cowslips and blue-bells
vanished, the thorn grew white with blossom, the wild honeysuckle
filled the wood with its fragrance, and soon the fruit began to ripen.

The blackbirds and the swallows and the chaffinches, and all the birds
they knew, gathered round the garden trees and bushes, and forgot the
woods, until suddenly one day they espied a little child. She was
sitting on a chair under a tree; she had a little table before her and
a pink ribbon round her hat; she was eating fruit with a large silver
spoon. The birds were afraid, and held aloof until a sparrow chirped
and the child looked up, and when they saw how blue her eyes were, they
sang out bravely and fluttered round her, thinking that she had brought
them news from the violets. But she never looked up again, though the
birds crowded on to the branch above her, and perched upon the table,
and rubbed their little beaks against her plate. She just held on her
hat with one hand, and with the other went on taking up fruit with a
silver spoon.

"Ah, dear child," a swallow twittered, "perhaps you do not know what is
written in your eyes; so many of us carry secrets that we ourselves
know last of all."

TOMMY'S STOCKINGS.

Two little maids went out one day,
And really it was shocking!
They met poor Tommy on the way,
With holes in either stocking.

They sat down on a low stone seat,
And to and fro kept rocking,
While they knitted, swift and neat,
Each of them a stocking.

And sweet they sang a little song,
The dickie-birds kept mocking;
And Tommy wished that all day long
They'd sit and knit a stocking.

MIDSUMMER-NIGHT.

The children were very much puzzled what to do, for it was
Midsummer-night, and they knew that there was a dream belonging to it;
but how to come across it they could not tell. They knew that the dream
had something to do with fairies, a queen, and all manner of lovely
things; but that was all. At first they thought they would sit up with
the doors and wi