rs. Muffet in her most economical tone, "comes but
once a year, so we must make it go as far as possible. The best way for
a child to do that is to sit and meditate. You've no idea how long a
holiday seems till you sit still and think about it. Count sixty, that
will be just one minute, and another, and another, and then
another--sixty times one, and then sixty times that, and then
twenty-four times that makes--well--it makes--the exact number doesn't
matter much," said Mrs. Muffet, who wasn't quick at mental arithmetic,
"but you'll see that there are quite a considerable number of seconds in
Christmas Day--quite enough for any growing child." So at Christmas time
Mrs. Muffet would go out to visit the neighbors, leaving the little girl
seated on a very uncomfortable tuffet, to meditate on the passage of
time.

[Illustration: _The kind of thing that Miss Muffet sat on_]

Perhaps some of you would like to know what a tuffet is. I have thought
of that myself, and have taken the trouble to ask several learned
persons. They assure me that the most complete and satisfactory
definition is,--a tuffet is the kind of thing that Miss Muffet sat on.
With this explanation I shall go on with my story. As she sat on her
tuffet counting up the seconds of Christmas Eve, and had already reached
the sum of two thousand one hundred and seven, a strange thing happened.
A visitor came and sat down beside her. You guess who he was? Yes--an
elderly, benevolent spider. He was short-sighted and wore green
spectacles, and had evidently a little rheumatism in his legs, but as he
had eight of them, he managed to get along very well.

Now the way you may have heard the story is that when the kind old
spider sat down beside her, it frightened Miss Muffet away. That story
must be true because I myself have seen it in print, but it happened at
another time, when Miss Muffet was very little indeed.

On the Christmas Eve I am telling about, she had become a very sensible
little girl, and knew all about spiders, so instead of running away, she
made room for him on the tuffet and said, "I am very glad to see you,
Mr. Spider." Mr. Spider bowed and looked at her in a kindly way through
his spectacles, but said nothing.

"I hope your family are all well; I mean the family Arachnida,
sub-order, I forget the name. We've enjoyed dissecting those we could
get; and you deserve a great deal of credit for the curious way in which
you are put together, with your