es. So the
donkey suffered sorely, and in many ways.

One day the donkey and the knight were on the table in front of the
child to whom they both belonged. She was cutting out a little doll's
frock with a large pair of scissors.

"Mistress," said the knight, "this donkey tries my temper. Will you
give me some spurs?"

"Oh, no, sir knight," the child answered. "You would hurt the poor
donkey; besides, you have no heels to put them on."

"Cruel knight!" exclaimed the donkey. "Make him get off, dear mistress;
I will carry him no longer."

"Let him stay," said the child, gently; "he has no legs, and cannot
walk."

"Then why did he want spurs?"

"Just the way of the world, dear donkey; just the way of the world."

"Ah!" sighed the donkey, "some ways are very trying, especially the
world's;" and then it said no more, but thought of the fields it would
never see, and the thistles it would never taste.

COCK-A-DOODLE.

I know a lovely dicky-bird,
A cock-a-doodle-doo;--
My father and my mother
And my sister know it too.

It struts about so gaily,
And it is brave and strong;
And when it crows, it is a crow,
Both very loud and long.

Oh, "Cock-a-doodle-doo," it crows,
And cock-a-doodle won't
Leave off its cock-a-doodling,
When mother dear cries "Don't!"

THE BOY AND LITTLE GREAT LADY.

She was always called the "little great lady," for she lived in a grand
house, and was very rich. He was a strange boy; the little great lady
never knew whence he came, or whither he went. She only saw him when
the snow lay deep upon the ground. Then in the early morning he swept a
pathway to the stable in which she had once kept a white rabbit. When
it was quite finished, she came down the steps in her white dress and
little thin shoes, with bows on them, and walked slowly along the
pathway. It was always swept so dry she might have worn paper shoes
without getting them wet. At the far end he always stood waiting till
she came, and smiled and said, "Thank you, little boy," and passed on.
Then he was no more seen till the next snowy morning, when again he
swept the pathway; and again the little great lady came down the steps
in her dainty shoes, and went on her way to the stable.

But at last, one morning when the snow lay white and thick, and she
came down the steps as usual, there was no pathway. The little boy
stood leaning on a spade, his feet bu