The boys returned to the Burtons fast asleep, Budge in his father’s arms, and Toddie’s head pillowed on the shoulder of faithful Mike. No sound was heard from either of them until the next morning, when finding that they slept later than usual, their aunt went to their chamber to arouse them. She found Budge sitting up in bed rubbing his eyes with one hand, while with the other he shook his brother, and elicited some ugly grunts of remonstrance.

“Tod!” exclaimed Budge; “Tod! Wake up! We ain’t where we was!”

“Don’t care if we ain’t,” drawled Toddie. “I’zhe in—a—nicer playsh. I’zhe in—big candy-shop.”

“No, you ain’t,” said Budge, trying to pick his brother’s eyes open. “You’re at Aunt Alice’, and when you went to sleep you was at mamma’s house.”

“Pw—w—w—!” cried Toddie, arising slowly; “you’s a hateful bad boy, Budgie. I was a-dreamin’ I was in a candystore, an’ gotted all my pockets full an’ bof hands full, too, an’ now you’s woketed me up an’ my hands is all empty, an’ I hazn’t got any pocket-clozhezh on me at all.”

“Well, next time you have a dream I won’t wake you at all, even if you have nightmares an’ dream awful things. Say, Aunt Alice, how do folks dream, I wonder? What makes everythin’ go away an’ be somethin’ else?”

“It is the result of indistinct impressions upon a semi-dormant brain,” said Mrs. Burton.

“Oh!”

Mrs. Burton thought she detected a note of sarcasm in her nephew’s exclamation, but he was so young and he seemed so meek of countenance that she abandoned the idea. Besides, her younger nephew had been saying “Aunt Alish—Aunt Alish—Aunt Alish—Aunt Alish—” as rapidly as he could with an increasing volume of voice. Mrs. Burton found time in which to say:

“What?”

“Did you say pwessin’ on bwains made us dweam fings, Aunt Alish?”

“Ye—es,” Mrs. Burton replied. “That is the——”

“Well, then,” interrupted Toddie. “Jzust you sit down on my head an’ make dat candy-shop come back again, won’t you?”

“Say, Aunt Alice,” said Budge, “do you know that lots of times I don’t know any more than I knew before.”

“I don’t understand you, Budge.”

“Why, when folks tell me things—I mean, I ask them how things are, an’ they tell me, an’ then I don’t know any better than I did before. Is that the way it is with grown folks?”

Mrs. Burton reflected for a moment and recalled many experiences very much like that of Budge—experiences, too, in which she had forced the same impassive face that Budge wore, as she pretended to comprehend that which had been imperfectly explained. She remembered, too, how depressing had been the lack of understanding, and how strong was the sense of injury at being required to act as if her comprehension had been perfectly reached. Whether the topics had been the simple affairs of childhood, or the social, Æsthetic and religious instructions of adult age, Mrs. Burton, like every one else, had been told more than she understood, and misunderstood many things she had been told, and blamed her friends and the world for her blunders and for lack of appreciation of the intentions to which proper and fostering training had never been applied. Was it possible that she was repeating with her nephews the blunders which others had committed while attempting to shape her own mind?

The thought threw Mrs. Burton into the profoundest depths of reverie, from which she was aroused by Budge, who asked:

“Aunt Alice, do you see the Lord?”

“No, Budge!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, with a start. “Why do you ask?”

“Why,” said Budge, “you was lookin’ so hard through the window, an’ right toward where you couldn’t see anythin’ but sky; an’ your eyes had such an ever-so-far look in them that I thought you must be lookin’ straight at the Lord.”

“If you sees Him,” said Toddie, “I wiss you’d ask him to send that dream back again to-night; to push on my bwains an’ make it come back, and then let me stay asleep until I eat up all de candy I gotted into my pockets an’ hands.”

The appearance of the chambermaid, who came to dress the boys for breakfast, put an end to the conversation, but Mrs. Burton determined that it should be renewed at the earliest opportunity, or, rather, that her discoveries of her own shortcomings as a teacher of children should lead to an early and practical reformation.

The fit of mental abstraction into which this resolution threw her was the cause of a silence which puzzled her husband considerably, for he could plainly see by her face that no affair merely matured was at the bottom of her reticence, and that what in men would be called temper was equally absent from her heart. In fact, the result upon Mrs. Burton’ face and actions was so beneficial that the lady’s husband determined to plead toothache as an excuse to remain at home for a day and look at her.

The mere suggestion, however, elicited from Mrs. Burton the mention of so many absolute necessities which could be procured only in the city and by her husband, that he departed by a train even earlier than the one upon which he usually travelled, and with sensations very like those of a man who has been forcibly ejected from a residence.

Then Mrs. Burton led her nephews into the sitting-room, seated herself, placed an arm tightly about each little boy, and said: “Children, is there anything that you would very much like to know?”

“Yesh,” answered Toddie, promptly. “I’d like to know what we’s going to have for dinner to-day?”

“And I,” said Budge, “would like to know when we’re all goin’ for a ride again.”

“I don’t mean silly things of that sort,” said Mrs. Burton, “but——”

“Ain’t silly fings!” said Toddie. “Deysh what makesh ush happy.”

Mrs. Burton made a mental note of the justice of the rebuke, and of its connection with the subject of which her heart was already full; but she was still Alice Mayton Burton, a lady whose perceptions could not easily prevent her from following the paths which she had already laid out for herself, so she replied:

“I know they are; but I want to teach you whatever you want to learn about matters of more importance.”

“Do you mean that you want to play school?” asked Budge. “Papa don’t think school is healthy for children in warm weather, an’ neither do we.”

“No, I don’t want to play school, but I want to explain to you some of the things which you say you don’t understand, though people tell you all about them. It makes Aunt Alice very unhappy to think that her dear little nephews are troubled about understanding things when they want so much to do so. Aunt Alice was once a little bit of a girl, and had just the same sort of trouble, and she remembers how uncomfortable it made her.”

“Oh!” said Budge, changing his position until he could look into his aunt’s eyes. “Did you ever have to wonder how big moons got to be little again, an’ then have big folks tell you they chopped up the old moons an’ made stars of them, when you knew the story must be an awful whopper?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton.

“An’ didn’t you ever wunner what dinner was goin’ to be made of, an’ den have big folks just say ‘never mind’?” asked Toddie.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton, giving Toddie a light squeeze. “I’ve been through that, too.”

“Why!” said Budge, “you was awful little once, wasn’t you? Well, did you ever have to wonder where God stood when he made the world out of nothing?”

“An’ did you ever have to fink how the sweet outsides got made onto date-stones an’ peach-pits?” asked Toddie.

“Oh, yes.”

“Then tell us all about ’em.”

“You asked me about dreams this morning, dear,” said Mrs. Burton, addressing Budge, “and——”

“I know I did,” said Budge; “but I’d rather know about dates an’ peaches now. I can’t dream any more till I go to bed; but I can buy dates inside of a quarter of an hour, if you’ll give me pennies. Oh, say—I’ll tell you what—you send me to buy some, and then you can explain about ’em easier. It’ so much nicer to see how things are than to have to think about ’em.”

“I can’t spare you now, dear, to go after dates. I may not have time to talk to you when you get back.”

“Oh, we’d manage not to bother you. I think we could find out all about ’em ourselves, if we had enough of ’em to do it with.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Burton, compromising reluctantly. “I’ll tell you about something else at present; then I will give you some money to purchase dates, and you may study them for yourselves.”

“All right. Now tell us what makes your dog Terry always run away whenever we want him?”

“Because you tease him so much, whenever you catch him that you have made him hate you,” said Mrs. Burton, delighted at the double opportunity to speak distinctly and impart a lesson in humanity.

“Now, you’s gettin’ ready to say ‘Don’t,’” Toddie complained. “Can’t little boysh lyne noffin’ dat hazn’t got any mean old ‘Don’t’ in it?”

“I hope so, poor little fellow,” said Mrs. Burton, repenting at once of her success.

“What would you like to know?”

Toddie opened his mouth and eyes, hung his head to one side, meditated for two or three minutes, and said:

“I—I—I—I—I wantsh to know whatsh de reason dat when a little boy hazh been eatin’ lotsh of buttananoes he can’t eat any more, when he’s been findin’ out all the whole time how awful good dey is?”

“Because his little stomach is full, and when one’s stomach is full it knows enough to stop wanting anything.”

“Then tummuks is gooses. I wiss I was my tummuk dzust once; I’d show it how never to get tired of buttananoes.”

“What I want to know,” said Budge, “is how we have dreams, ’cause I don’t know any more about it than I did before, after what you told me this morning.”

“It’s a hard thing to explain, dear,” said Mrs. Burton, as she endeavored to frame a simple explanation. “We think with our brain, and when we sleep our brain sleeps too, though sometimes it isn’t as sleepy as the rest of our body; and when it is a little wakeful it thinks the least bit, but it can’t think straight, so each thought gets mixed up with part of some other thought.”

“That’s the reason I dreamed last night that a cow was sittin’ in your rockin’-chair readin’ an atlas,” said Budge. “But what made me think about cows an rockin-chairs an’ atlases at all?”

“That’s one of the things which we can’t explain about dreams,” said Mrs. Burton. “We seem to remember something that we have seen at some other time, and our memories jumble against each other, when two or three come at a time.”

“Then,” said Toddie, “some night when I’ze asleep I’m goin’ to fink about buttananoes an’ red-herrin’ an’ ice-cream an’ourgrass an’ hard-boiled eggs an’ candy an’ fried hominy, an’ won’t I hazh a lovaly little tea-party in bed, if all my finks djumbles togevver? An’ I won’t djeam about any uvver little boy wif me at all.”

“When I dream about dear little dead brother Phillie,” said Budge, “don’t I do anythin’ but just remember him? Don’t he come down from heaven and see me in my bed?”

“I imagine not, dear,” said Mrs. Burton.

“Then what makes him look so white and sunny, an’ smile so sweet, an’ flap his dear little white wings close to my face so I can touch ’em?”

“I suppose it is because—because you have thought of him looking that way,” said Mrs. Burton, drawing Budge closer to her side to hide the wistfulness of his face from her eyes. “You’ve seen pictures of angels all in white, with graceful wings, and you’ve thought of little brother Phil looking that way.”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Budge, burying his face in his aunt’s robe and bursting into tears. “I wish I hadn’t tried to find out about dreamin’! I don’t ever want to learn about anything else. If dear little angel Phillie is only a piece of a think in my brain when I’m asleep, then there isn’t nothin’ that’s anythin’. I always thought it was funny that he began to go away as soon as I began to wake up.”

“Cows don’t go ’way when I wakes up from dreamin’ about ’em,” said Toddie. “I ’members ’em all day, an’ sees ’em whenever I don’t want to.”

Mrs. Burton could not repress a smile, while Budge raised his head, and said:

“Well, I suppose it’s no good to be unhappy. We’d better have fun than think about things that’s awful sad. Can’t you think of some new kind of a play for us?”

“I’m afraid I can’t, at this minute,” said Mrs. Burton.

“Suppose you play store,” said Budge, “an’ keep lots of nice things, like cakes an’ candies, an’ let us buy ’em of you for pins. Oh, yes! an’ you give us the pins to buy ’em with.

“An’ do it ’fore it getsh dinner-time,” said Toddie, “so de fings you sell us can get out of the way in time, so we can get empty to get fullded up at dinner.”

“I can’t do that,” said Mrs. Burton, “because it would give you an excuse to eat between meals.”

“Then tell us stories,” Budge suggested; “no, make a menagerie for us. Oh, no!—I’ll tell you what, make believe it was our house, an’ you was comin’ to visit us, an’ we’ll bring you up cake an’ coffee to rest yourself with.”

“I’m afraid I smell some little mice!” said Mrs. Burton.

“In the mouse-twap?” inquired Toddie. “Oh! get ’em for ush to play wif!”

“Tell you what,” said Budge. “You can tell us that funny story about the man that had dogs for doctors.”

“Dogs for doctors?” echoed Mrs. Burton.

“Yes,” said Budge; “don’t you know? He’s in the Bible book.”

“He may be,” said Mrs. Burton, rapidly passing in review such biblical dogs as she could remember, “but I don’t know where.”

“Why, don’t you know?” continued Budge. “He was that man that was so poor that he had to eat crumbs, an’ papa don’t think he had any syrup with ’em, either, like we do when the cook gives us the crumbs out of the bread-box.”

“Is it possible you mean Lazarus?” exclaimed Mrs. Burton.

“Yesh,” said Toddie, “dat was him. ’Twasn’t de Lazharus that began to live again after he was buried, though. He didn’t have no dogs.”

“The poor man you mean,” said Mrs. Burton, “was very sick and very poor, so that he had to be fed with the scraps that a rich man named Dives left at his own table. But the Lord saw him and knew what troubles he was having, and determined that the poor man should be happy after he died, to make up for the trouble he had when he was alive. So when poor Lazarus died the Lord took him right into heaven.”

“Nobody has to eat table-scraps there, do they?” said Budge. “But say, Aunt Alice, what do they do in heaven with things that’ left at the table? Isn’t it wicked to throw them away up there?”

“Should fink they’d cut a hole in the floor of hebben an’ grop de scraps down froo, for poor people,” said Toddie. “When I gets to be an andzel, an’ gets done my dinners, I’m goin’ to get up on the wall an’ froe the rest over down into the world. Only I must be careful not to grop off myself an’ tumble into the wylde again.”

“What I want to know is,” said Budge, “how do they get things to eat for the angels? Do they have grocery stores, an’ butcher shops, an’ milk wagons up there?”

“Gracious, no!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, her fingers instinctively moving toward her ears. “The Lord provides food in some way that we don’t understand. But this poor Lazarus, after he became an angel, looked out of heaven, and saw, away off in the bad place, the rich man whose leavings he used to eat, for the rich man had died too. And the rich man begged Abraham——”

“I fought his name was Lazharus?” said Toddie.

“The poor man was named Lazarus,” said Mrs. Burton; “but when he reached heaven he found good old Abraham there, and Abraham took care of him. And the rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus just to dip his finger in water and rub it on the rich man’ lips, for he was so thirsty.”

“Why didn’t he get a drink for himself?” asked Budge. “Can’t rich people wait on themselves even when they die?”

“There is no water in the bad place,” said Mrs. Burton. “That was why he was so thirsty.”

“Goodnesh!” said Toddie. “How does little boysh make mud-pies there?”

“I hope no little boys ever go there,” said Mrs. Burton. “But Abraham said: ‘Not so, my friend. You had your good things while you were alive; now you must get along without anything. But poor Lazarus must be made happy, for he had very bad times when he was alive!’”

“Is that the way it is?” Budge asked. “Then I guess Abraham will have to do lots for me when I die, for I have a good many bad times nowadays. Then what did the bothered old rich man do about it?”

“He told Abraham that he had some brothers that were alive yet, and he wished that an angel might be sent to tell them to be good, so as never to have to come to that dreadful place. But Abraham told him it wouldn’t be of any use to send an angel. They had good books and preachers that would tell them what to do.”

“An’ did he have to go on bein’ thirsty forever?” asked Budge.

“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Burton, with a shudder, and realizing why it was that the doctrine of eternal torment was not more industriously preached from the pulpit.

“G’won!” remarked Toddie.

“That is all there is of it,” said Mrs. Burton.

“Why you didn’t tell us a fing about the doctor-dogs,” complained Toddie.

“Oh, those are not nice to tell about,” said Mrs. Burton.

“I fink deysh dzust de nicest fing about de story. Whenever I getsh a sore finger, I goes an’ sits down by the back door an’ calls Terry. But I don’t fink Terry’s a very good doctor, ’cauzh he don’t come when I wants him. One of dese days when I getsh lotsh of soresh, like Jimmy McNally when he had the smallpox, an’ Terry will want to see me awful, I won’t let him see me a bit. Tell us ’nother story.”

The sound of harp and fiddle came to Mrs. Burton’s rescue, and the boys hurried to the front of the house to behold two very small Italians, who were doing their utmost to teach adults the value of peace and quietness.

Budge and Toddie listened to the whole repertoire of the couple, encored every selection, bestowed in payment the pennies their aunt gave them for the purpose, and proposed to follow the musicians on their route through the town, but their aunt stopped them.

“What do those little fellows do with all the pennies they get?” asked Budge. “Do they buy candy with them?”

“What lotsh of candy they must have!” exclaimed Toddie.

“I suppose they take their money home to their papas and mammas,” said Mrs. Burton, “for they are very poor people. Perhaps the parents of those two little boys are sick at this very moment, and are looking anxiously for the return of their little boys who are so far away.” (Mem. The first report of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children had not been published at that time.)

“An’ do the little boys make all that music dzust ’cauzh dey love somebody?” asked Toddie.

“Yes, dear.”

“But folks always gets paid by the Lord for doin’ things for other folks, don’t they, Aunt Alice?” asked Budge.

“Yes, dear old fellow,” said Mrs. Burton.

“One fing nysh about dem little boysh,” said Toddie, “ish dat, when their papas an’ mammas is sick, dere isn’t anybody to tell ’em not to get deir shoes dusty. Dzust see how dey walksh along in the middle of the street, kickin’ up de dust, an’ nobody to say ‘Don’t!’s to ’em, an’ nobody skrong enough to spynk ’em for it when dey gets home. I wiss I was a musicker.”

“Well, they’re gone now,” sighed Budge, “’an we want something else to make us happy. Say, Aunt Alice, why don’t you have a horse an’ carriage like mamma, so that you could take us out ridin’?”

“Uncle Harry isn’t rich enough to keep good horses and carriages,” said Mrs. Burton, “and he doesn’t like poor ones.”

“Why, how much does good horses cost? I think Mr. Blanner’s horses are pretty good, but papa says they’d be dear at ten cents apiece.”

“I suppose a good horse costs three or four hundred dollars,” said Mrs. Burton.

“My—y—y!” exclaimed Budge. “That’ more money than it costs our Sunday-school to pay for a missionary! Which is goodest—horses or missionaries?”

“Missionaries, of course,” said Mrs. Burton, leaving the piazza, with a dim impression that she had, during the morning, answered a great many questions with very slight benefit to any one.

The boys cared for themselves until luncheon, and then returned with rather less appetite than was peculiar to them. The new siege of questioning which their aunt had anticipated was postponed; each boy’s mind seemed to be in the reflective, rather than the receptive, attitude.

After luncheon they hastily disappeared, without any attempt on the part of their aunt to prevent them, for Mrs. Burton had arranged to make, that afternoon, one of the most important of calls. Mrs. Congressman Weathervane had been visiting a friend at Hillcrest, and Mrs. Weathervane’s mother and Mrs. Burton’s grandmother had been schoolday acquaintances, and Mrs. Mayton would have come from the city to pay her respects to the descendant of the old friend of the family, but some of the infirmities of age prevented. And Mrs. Mayton instructed her daughter to call upon Mrs. Weathervane as a representative of the family, and Mrs. Burton would have lost her right hand or her new spring hat rather than disregard such a command. So she had hired a carriage and devised an irreproachable toilet, and recalled and tabulated everything she had ever heard about the family of the lady who had become Mrs. Weathervane.

The carriage arrived, and no brace of boys dashed from unexpected lurking-places to claim a portion of its seats. The carriage rolled off in safety, and Mrs. Burton fell into an impromptu service of praise to the kind power which often blesses us when we least expect to be blessed. The carriage reached the house and the terrible Mrs. Weathervane turned out to be one of the most charming of young women, before whose sunny temperament Mrs. Burton’s assumed dignity melted like the snow of May, and her store of venerable family anecdotes disappeared at once from the memory which had guarded them jealously.

But joy is never unalloyed in this wicked world. While the couple were chatting merrily, and Mrs. Weathervane was insisting that Mrs. Burton should visit her at Washington during the session, and Mrs. Burton was trying to persuade Mrs. Weathervane to accept the Burton hospitality for at least a day or two, there arose under the window the squeak of violin and the wail of some badly played wind instrument.

“Those wretched little Italians!” exclaimed Mrs. Weathervane. “For which of our sins, I wonder, are we condemned to listen to them?”

“If they come as punishment for sins,” said Mrs. Burton, “how wicked I must be, for this is my second experience with them to-day. They were at my house for half an hour this morning.”

“And you are sweet of disposition this afternoon?” said Mrs. Weathervane. “Oh! I must spend a day or two with you, and take some lessons in saintly patience.”

Mrs. Burton inclined her head in acknowledgment, and Mrs. Weathervane approached some other topic, when the violin under the window gave vent to a series of terrible groans of anguish, while the wind-instrument, apparently a flute, shrieked discordantly in three notes an octave apart from each other.

“An attempt to execute something upon one string, I suppose,” said Mrs. Weathervane, “and the execution is successful only as criminal executions are. What should be done to the little wretches? And yet one can’t help giving them money; did you see the story of their terrible life in the newspapers this week? It seems they are hired in Italy by dreadful men, who bring them here, torture them into learning their wretched tunes and then send them out to play and beg. They are terribly whipped if they do not bring home a certain sum of money every day.”

“The poor little things!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton. “I’m glad that I gave them a good many pennies this morning. I must have had an intuition of their fate, for I’m certain I had no musical enjoyment to be paid for. They can hardly be as old as some children in nurseries, either.”

“No, indeed,” said Mrs. Weathervane, going to the window. “The elder of these two boys cannot be more than six, while the younger may be four; and the older looks so sad, so introspective! The younger—poor little fellow—has only expectancy in his countenance. He is looking up to all the windows for the pennies that he expects to be thrown to him. He has probably not had so hard an experience as his companion, for his instrument is only a common whistle. Think of the frauds which their masters practise upon the tender-hearted! The idea of sending out a child with a common whistle on the pretense of making music.”

“It’s perfectly dreadful!” said Mrs. Burton.

“Then to think what the parents of some of these children may have been,” continued Mrs. Weathervane. “The older of this couple has really many noble lines in his face, did not the long-drawn agony of separation and abuse inscribe deeper ones there. The smaller one, vilely dirty as he is, has a very picturesque head and figure. He is smiling now. Oh! what wouldn’t I give if some artist could catch his expression for me!”

“Really,” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, approaching the window; “I hadn’t noticed so many charms about them, but I shall be glad to have them pointed out to me. Mercy!”

“What can be the matter?” murmured Mrs. Weathervane, as her visitor fell back from the window and dropped into a chair.

“They’re my nephews!” gasped Mrs. Burton. “Oh, what shall I do with those dreadful children?”

“Stolen from home?” inquired Mrs. Weathervane, discerning a romance within reaching distance.

“No—oh, no!” said Mrs. Burton. “I left them at home an hour or two ago. I can’t imagine why they should have taken this freak, unless because boys will be dreadful, no matter what is done for them. I suppose,” she continued, hurrying to the window, “that Budge has his uncle’s violin, which I think is fully as dear to its owner as his wife. Yes, he has it! Boys!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, appearing at the piazza-door, “go directly home.”

At the sound of their aunt’s voice the boys looked up with glad smiles of recognition, while Budge exclaimed, “Oh, Aunt Alice! we’ve played at lots of houses, an’ we’ve got nearly a dollar. We told everybody we was playin’ to help Uncle Harry buy a horse an’ carriage!”

“Go home!” repeated Mrs. Burton. “Go by the back road, too. I am going myself right away. Be sure that I find you there when I return.”

Slowly and sadly the amateurs submitted to the fateful decree and moved toward home, while Mrs Weathervane bestowed a sympathetic kiss upon her troubled visitor. A great many people came to doors and windows to see the couple pass by, but what was public interest to a couple whose motive had been rudely destroyed? So dejected was their mien as they approached the Burton mansion, and so listless was their step, that the dog Terry, who was on guard at the front door, gave only an inquiring wag of his tail, and did not change his position as the boys passed over the door-mat upon which he lay. A moment or two later a carriage dashed up to the door, and Mrs. Burton descended, hurried into the house, and exclaimed:

“How dared you to do such a vulgar, disgraceful thing?”

“Well,” said Budge, “that’s another of the things we don’t understand much about, even after we’re told. We thought we could be just as good to you an’ Uncle Harry as dirty little Italian boys is to their papas an’ mammas, an’ when we tried it, you made us go straight home.”

“Dzust the same fing as saying ‘Don’t’s at us,” Toddie complained.

“An’ after we got a whole lot of money, too!” said Budge. “Papa says some big men don’t get more than a dollar in a day, an’ we got most a dollar in a little bit of a while. It’s partly because we was honest, though, I guess, an’ told the troof everywhere—we told everybody that we wanted the money to help Uncle Harry to buy a horse an’ carriage.”

Uncle Harry himself, moved by his aching tooth, had returned from New York in time to hear, unperceived, the last portion of Budge’s explanation, after which he heard the remainder of the story from his wife. His expression as he listened, his glance at his nephews, and his frantic examination of his beloved violin, gave the boys to understand how utter is sometimes the failure of good intentions to make happy those persons for whose benefit they are exerted. The somber reflections of the musicians were unchanged by anything which occurred during the remainder of the afternoon, and when they retired, it was with a full but sorrowful heart that Budge prayed: “Dear Lord, I’ve been scolded again for tryin’ to do somethin’ real nice for other people. I guess it makes me know something about how the good prophets felt. Please don’t let me have to be killed for doin’ good. Amen.”

And Toddie prayed: “Dee Lord, dere’ some more ‘Don’t’s been said to me, an’ I fink Aunt Alice ought to be ’hamed of herself. Won’t you please make her so? Amen.”