"No, sare, not de cow; you stup Johnny de bœuf-I mean de cheval, vat you ride. [Imitating.] Come, sare, gee up. Ah, ha."

"Oh, now I know; you mean a horse." "No, sare, I mean de horse's vife."

"What, the mare ?"

"Oui, bon, yes sare, take me to the mayor."

This request was complied with, and the French officer stood before the English magistrate, who by chance happened to be better informed than his neighbours, and thus explained to the satisfaction of all parties :

"You have mistaken the intention of this honest gentleman; he did not want to fly the country, but to go a fishing, and for that purpose went to your shop to purchase two flies, by way of bait, or, as he expressed it, to la trap la poisson. Poisson, in French, is fish."

66

Why, aye," replied the shopkeeper, "that may be trueyou are a scholard, and so you know better than I. Poisson, in French, may be very good fish, but give me good old English roast beef."

ANONYMOUS.

THE BOUQUET.

(AN INCIDENT FROM HELEN'S BABIES.". -CONDENSED.) That afternoon I devoted to making a bouquet for Miss Mayton, and a most delightful occupation I found it.

At length it was finished, but my delight suddenly became clouded by the dreadful thought, "What will folks say?" Upon the discretion of Mike, the coachman, I could safely rely. I had seen in one of the library-drawers a small pasteboard box, shaped like a bandbox-doubtless that would hold it. I found the box-it was just the size I needed. dropped my card into the bottom,-no danger of a lady not

I

finding the card accompanying a gift of flowers-neatly fitted the bouquet in the centre of the box, and went in search of Mike. He winked cheeringly as I explained the nature of his errand, and he whispered:

"I'll do it as clane as a whistle, yer honour. Mistress Clarkson's cook an' mesilf understhand each other, an' I'm used to going up the back way."

"Very well, Mike; here's a dollar for you: you'll find the box on the hat-rack in the hall."

Half an hour later, while I sat in my chamber window, reading, I beheld Mike, cleanly shaved, dressed and brushed, swinging up the road, with my box balanced on one of his enormous hands. With a head full of pleasing fancies, I went down to supper. My new friends were unusually good. Their ride seemed to have toned down their boisterousness and elevated their little souls; their appetites exhibited no diminution of force, but they talked but little, and all they said was smart, funny, or startling-so much so that when, after supper, they invited me to put them to bed, I gladly accepted the invitation. Toddie disappeared somewhere, and came back very disconsolate.

"Can't find my dolly's k'adle," he whined.

"Never mind, old pet," said I, soothingly. "Uncle will ride you on his foot."

"But I want my dolly's k'adle," said he piteously, rolling out his lower lip.

"Toddie, don't you want to ride on uncle's back?"

"No; want my dolly's k'adle."

"Don't

you want me to tell you a story?"

For a moment Toddie's face indicated a terrible internal conflict between old Adam and Mother Eve, but curiosity finally overpowered natural depravity, and Toddie muttered:

"Yesh."

"Do you know what the war was?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," said Budge, "papa was there, an' he's got a sword; don't you see it, hangin' up there?"

Yes, I saw it, and the difference between the terrible field where last I saw Tom's sword in action, and this quiet room where it now hung, forced me into a reverie from which I was aroused by Budge remarking:

"Ain't you goin' to tell us one?"

"Oh, yes, Budge. One day while the war was going on, there was a whole lot of soldiers going along a road, and they were as hungry as they could be; they hadn't had anything to eat that day."

"Why didn't they go into the houses, and tell the people they was hungry? That's what I do when I goes along roads."

"Because the people in that country didn't like them: the brothers and papas and husbands of those people were soldiers too; but they didn't like the soldiers I told you about first, and they wanted to kill them."

"I don't think they were a bit nice," said Budge, with considerable decision.

"Well, the first soldiers wanted to kill them, Budge."

"Then they was all bad, to want to kill each other."

66

Oh, no, they weren't; there were a great many real good men on both sides."

Poor Budge looked sadly puzzled, as he had an excellent right to do, since the wisest and best men are sorely perplexed by the nature of warlike feeling.

"Both parties of soldiers were on horseback," I continued, "and they were near each other, and when they saw each other, they made their horses run fast, and the bugles blew, and the soldiers all took their swords out to kill each other with, when just then a little boy, who had been out in the woods to pick berries for his mamma, tried to run across the

road, and caught his toe some way, and fell down and cried. Then somebody hallooed 'Halt!' very loud, and all the horses on one side stopped, and then somebody else hallooed 'Halt!' and a lot of bugles blew, and every horse on the other side stopped, and one soldier jumped off his horse and picked up the little boy-he was only about as big as you, Budge-and tried to comfort him; and then a soldier from the other side came up to look at him, and then more soldiers came from both sides to look at him; and when he got better and walked home, the soldiers all rode away, because they didn't feel like fighting just then."

"O Uncle Harry! I think it was an awful good soldier that got off his horse to take care of that poor little boy." 66 Do you, Budge!-who do you think it was?"

"I dunno."

"It was your papa." "Oh-h-h-h-h!" If Tom could have but seen the expression upon his boy's face as he prolonged this exclamation, his loss of one of the grandest chances a cavalry officer ever had, would not have seemed so great to him as it had done for years. He seemed to take in the story in all its bearings, and his great eyes grew in depth as they took on the far-away look which seemed too earnest for the strength of an earthly being to support.

But Toddie-he who a fond mamma thought endowed with art sense-Toddie had throughout my recital the air of a man who was musing on some affair of his own, and Budge's exclamation had hardly died away when Toddie commenced to weave aloud an extravaganza wholly his own.

"When I was a soldier," he remarked, very gravely, "I had a coat an' a hat on, an' a muff, an' a little knake wound my neck to keep me warm, an' it wained, an' hailed, an' 'tormed, an' I felt bad, so I fwhallowed a sword, an' burned me all down dead."

"And how did you get here?" I asked, with interest proportioned to the importance of Toddie's last clause.

"Oh, I got up from the burn-down dead, an' comed right here. An' I want my dolly's k'adle."

O persistent little dragon! If you were of age what a fortune you might make in business!

“Uncle Harry, I wish my papa would come home right away," said Budge.

"Why, Budge ?"

"I want to love him for bein' so good to that poor little boy in the war."

"Unken Hawwy, I wants my dolly's k'adle, tause my dolly's in it, an' I want to shee her :" thus spake Toddie. "Don't you think the Lord loved my papa awful much for doin' that sweet thing, Uncle Harry?" asked Budge. "Yes, old fellow, I feel sure that He did."

"Lord lovesh my papa vewy vewy much," remarked Toddie. k'adle an' my dolly."

much, so I love ze Lord "An' I wants my dolly's

"Toddie, I don't know where either of them are—I can't find them now-do wait till morning, then Uncle Harry will look for them."

A knock at the door interrupted me. "Come in!" I

shouted.

In stepped Mike, with an air of the greatest secresy, handed me a letter and the identical box in which I had

sent the flowers to Miss Mayton. What could it mean? I hastily opened the envelope, and at the same time Toddie shrieked :

"Oh, darsh my dolly's k'adle-dare tizh!" snatched and opened the box, and displayed-his doll! My heart sickened, and did not regain its strength during the perusal of the following note: