THERE was once a little girl who was so fond of dancing that she never did anything else.

She danced whilst she took her breakfast, so that her nice bread-and-milk was spilt upon the ground; she danced on her way to school, and was late in consequence; she danced when she took her dinner, and dropped the soup down her pretty frock and spoilt it; and even when she was tucked up in bed at night, her little feet kept dancing up and down beneath the bed-clothes, and she dreamt that she was treading a minuet with the King of the Fairies.

Now, of course this was very wrong indeed of the little girl. It is all very well to dance at the proper time, but out of time and season, as this little girl danced, it is a very bad thing indeed.

Her mother reasoned with her, coaxed her, scolded her; but it was all of no use, for she danced the more.

The little girl’s mother was very poor, and there were ever so many little brothers and sisters who wanted taking care of, but she was too selfish to think of anyone but herself; sometimes her mother would ask her to take the baby and hush him to sleep, but she pouted and grumbled and made a terrible fuss. If she did take him up in her arms for a while, she kept dancing round the room with the poor sleepy little fellow, till she wakened him up, and then he would scream and cry, and would not be soothed till his mother took him again.

So you see, the foolish little girl was of no use to anyone.

One day when she was dancing to school as usual, she met an old woman upon the way. And because she stood in the pathway and the dancing maiden could not pass her easily, she danced across the old woman’s toes.

Now, it happened that the old woman was a fairy, and she was so angry and offended with the little girl that she determined to punish her.

“You shall have dancing enough to last you all the days of your life,” she said, and with a wave of her wand, she turned her into a chimney-cowl, which, as everyone knows, does nothing the livelong day but whirl round and round till it almost makes one giddy to watch it. And the next time you go out for a walk, you have only to look upwards to where the chimneys grow, and you may see for yourself the little dancing-girl, who was so rude as to tread upon the fairy’s toes, going whirl, whirl! the whole day long, whether she will or no.

And the moral of this story is—“Don’t dance out of time and season, and don’t tread upon old women’s toes, or there is no knowing but what you may be turned into a chimney-cowl also.”

L. L. Weedon.