“I wanted to hug you, Toby, because I do thank you for giving me such good advice, and I know every word of it’s true.

“I mean to try hard to follow it, and I’ll tell you what I shall do.

“Nurse wants to put bitter stuff on the tips of my fingers, to cure me of biting them, and now I think I shall let her.

“I know they’re not fit to be seen, but she says they would soon become better.

“I mean to keep my hands behind my back a good deal till they’re well, and to hold my head up, and turn out my toes; and every time I give way to one of my tricks, I shall go and stand (on both legs) before the picture, and confess it to great-great-grandmamma.

“Just fancy if I’ve no tricks left this time next year, Toby!  Won’t that show how clever we are?

“I for trying so hard to do what I’m told, and you for being so wise that people will say—­’That sensible pug cured that silly little girl when not even her mother could mend her.’

“—­Ah!  Bad Dog!  Where are you slinking off to?—­Oh, Toby, darling! do, do take a little of your own good advice, and try to cure yourself of lying in the fender!”

[Illustration:  THE OWL IN THE IVY BUSH]

THE OWL IN THE IVY BUSH;

OR,

THE CHILDREN’S BIRD OF WISDOM.

INTRODUCTION.

     “Hoot toots, man, yon’s a queer bird!”

     Bonnie Scotland.

I AM an Owl; a very fluffy one, in spite of all that that Bad Boy pulled out!  I live in an Ivy Bush.  Children are nothing to me, naturally, so it seems strange that I should begin, at my time of life, to observe their little ways and their humours, and to give them good advice.

And yet it is so.  I am the Friend of Young People.  In my flight abroad I watch them.  As I sit meditating in my Ivy Bush, it is their little matters which I turn over in my fluffy head.  I have established a letter-box for their communications at the Hole in the Tree.  No other address will find me.

It is well known that I am a Bird of Wisdom.  I am also an Observing Bird; and though my young friends may think I see less than I do, because of my blinking, and because I detest that vulgar glare of bright light without which some persons do not seem able to see what goes on around them, I would have children to know that if I can blink on occasion, and am not apt to let every starer read my counsel in my eyes, I am wide awake all the same.  I am on the look-out when it’s so dark that other folk can’t see an inch before their noses, and (a word to the foolish and naughty!) I can see what is doing behind my back.  And Wiseacre, Observer, and Wide-awake—­I am the Children’s Owl.

Before I open my mouth on their little affairs, before even I open my letters (if there are any waiting for me) I will explain how it came about that I am the Children’s Owl.