Hildegarde's Holiday

he next morning, "may I tell you what it was tha

you may tell me, and then you may forget t

the idea of her ever having been anything of the sort was so utterly amazing that-that was

ss Wealthy. "Mildred pe

ured, in a tone that would have persuaded an oyster to open his shell. Then she stroked M

glances of horror and amazement at the thought of this headgear, but made no sound. "I shall never forget that bonnet," continued Miss Wealthy, pensively, "nor that dress. In getting out of the carriage her skirt caught on the step, and part of a row of braid was ripped; this made a loop, in which she caught her foot, and tumbled headlong to the ground. I mended it in the evening, after she was in bed, as it was the frock she was to wear every morning. My dear

tack in the barnyard, pulled out a quantity of hay, crept into the hole, and found it so comfortable that she fell fast asleep. You may imagine, my dears, what my feelings were when dinner-time came, and Mildred was not to be found. The house was searched from garret to cellar. Martha and I-Martha had just come to me then-went down to the wharf and through the orchard and round by the pasture, calling and calling, till our throats were sore. At last, as no trace of the chi

cried Hildegarde. "What did y

time. Once, coming home from a walk, I heard a cheery little voice crying, 'Cousin Wealthy! Cousin! see where I am!' I looked up. Hilda, she was sitting on the ridge-pole of the house, waving her bonnet by a loop of the p

all! I really thought I should die that tim

degarde; "unless you are tired,

t of doors, and she always came home in time for dinner and tea. Well, one day-it was in March, and the river was just breaking up, as we had had some mild weather-the minister came to see me, and I began to tell him about Mildred, and how she had developed, and how much comfort I took in her womanly ways. He was sitting on the sofa, from which, you know, one can see the river very well. Suddenly he said, 'Dear me! what is th

dreadful! Dear Miss B

ainly very naughty, she thought; b

her to understand that she was wanted. The minister watched her making her way to the shore, leaping the dark spaces of rushing water between the cakes, apparently as unconcerned as if she were walking along the highway; and when he saw her safe on shore, he was very glad to sit down and drink a glass of the wine that Martha had brought to revive me. 'My dear madam,' he said,-I was lying on the sofa in dreadful suspense, an

de, anxiously, thinking what a dreadful thi

ancy those were very sad hours for her. Dear Mildred! that was her last prank; for the next time she came here she was a woman grown, and all the hoyden ways had been put off l

the cushions of the old lady's chair, reminded her that she had promi

I send flowers once a week to the sick children in the hospital at Fairt

call work, Cousin Wealthy? I call it play, and the best kind. We must go at

appeared with a tray in one hand and a large shallow tin box in the other. Waving the tray as a signal to the girls to follow, she led the way to a shady corner, where, under a drooping laburnum-tree

ilda, and it's right glad I am to have you do it; for it is too much for Miss Bond, stooping over the

else so pleasant to do. And thank you, Martha, for making everythin

ter telling the girls that the f

the pretty dears as I bring them to you. The question is now,

ill lay them at the bottom. Some of those splendid sweet-williams

f course, picking with all my hundred hands at the

attention to the laburnum here. 'Allee same,' I don't be

de, plucking some of the dark, rich blossoms.

so wore crimson instead of black for mourning. She is so beautiful, it

asked Hildega

"but just as prickly. The fuller's

degarde, with some asperity. "You know I never

intily. "The flower-heads of this teasel, when they are dried, are covered with sharp curved hooks, and are used to raise the nap on wool

ldegarde. "Oh,

d Rose, in alarm. "Has som

overwhelm me! They bury me! A mountain weighs me down, and on its top grows a-a teasel. Why, I never heard of the t

bent with renewed energy over a bed of feathere

nder. To think that we can go on climbing, learning, all our lives, and always with higher and higher peaks above us, soaring up and up,-oh, it is glorious! What might be the matter wi

from the humiliation of having been so frightened by a sturgeon, when I had been brought up, s

round his neck, with 'Fresh Caviare!' on it." Hildegarde laughed. "You remind me," added Rose, "that my own ignorance list is getting pretty long. Get me some sweet-peas, that's a dear; and I can ask you the things while you are picking them." Hildegarde moved to the long rows of sweet-peas, which g

ter Shakspeare, I think,-at least, well, leaving out the Greeks, you know. He was a year

d gentle Rose. "Then he

II.,' and 'Tamburlaine,' and-oh! I don't know all. But one thing of his you kno

"Did he write that

ng sweet-peas vigorously. "Mamma has read me a good deal here and there,-all of 'Edward II.

ce that launched

topless towe

ships, and the white, royal city, and the beautiful

poke of the 'mighty line,' dear? It must have been another great poe

e. He lived to be quite old, and he wrote a very famous poem on Shakspeare, 'all full of quotations,' as somebody said about 'Hamlet.' It is in

cestor of Dr. Samuel'

Well, his father died when he was little, and his mother married a brick-layer; and Ben used to carry hods of mortar up ladders,-oh me! what a strange world it is! By-and-by he was made Laureate,-the first Laureate,-and he was very great and glorious, and wrote masques and plays and poems, and quarrelled with Inigo Jones-no! I can't

s coming. "But the best of all," continued Hildegarde, "was his v

tly. "Not that I know who he was;

was a poet too, a Scottish poet,

ovely Rosabelle'?" cried Rose, her

nd one of his first visits was to William Drummond, with whom he had corresponded a good deal. Drummond was sitting under his great sycamore-tree, waiting for him, and at last he saw a great ponderous figure coming down the avenue, flouris

ngs?" cried Rose, in amazement. "That is delightful, e

asel still flaunts. But I do feel better. That is just my baseness, to be glad when you don't know things, you dearest! But do just look

K WE HAVE ENOUGH

Think of all the pleasure they will give! A sick child, and a bunch of flowers like these!" She took up a posy of velvet pansies

de, interrogatively. "The

bunch of Ragged Robin, and laid it on my pillow, and said, 'Poor Pinky! make she better!' I think I have never loved any other flower quite so

t, and throwing her arm round her friend's shoulder in her favor

se tol

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