But to display weakness now might be to lose all, reflected Mr. John; so he kept back the words of sympathy that were on his lips as he leaned down and offered to carry her to the phaeton.

“I prefer to walk, thank you,” said Mollie, her pride giving her strength to rise and take the arm which John, jr., stood ready to offer.  However, Mr. John forcibly made an exchange, and, in spite of Mollie, half led and half carried her to the road.

“Don’t be discouraged, Mollie,” he said as he put her in, while Bob was busy at the halter.  “The next time you’ll jump like a man.”

“That nonsense is all over, thank you,” said Mollie, very loftily, though not very clearly, because of her swollen lips.  “Think what you please of me,” she mumbled.  “It is all ended; and it might have ended sooner, too, if I’d taken better advice.”

“With better advice it never would have ended, you contrary little minx,” said Mr. John to himself as she drove away.

The doctor came and Mollie was ordered to bed; but even his opiate did not make her sleep.  It was soothing, indeed, to lie there in the twilight with her hand in her mother’s, and feel that she was her little girl entirely, no more to be her boy while life should last.  And pleasant visions of a Gothic school-house, where she should some day be mistress of sweet, rosy-cheeked children, rose gracefully on the ruins of her manly aspirations.

By and by the bell rang, and her mother brought a lamp, and a package which Mollie sat up and opened.  There, with a note pinned on the left leg of her trousers and a box of Mollie’s best-beloved candies clasped on her jacket, lay Helena.

“I have never been to the ash-man’s house, Mother Mollie,” said the note.  “I have been visiting Mr. John’s cuffs and collars in the bureau-drawer.  I want my girls’ clothes on to-morrow.  I claim it as my right.  We all have our rights.  Put me in dresses and take me home to the play-room.  You have your rights too, and I wouldn’t let any one tell me that I hadn’t a right to be a girl.  It is my opinion that if you had been meant for a boy you would have been made one.  Come, mother, cuddle me up, and let’s go to sleep and have sweet dreams, and a blithe waking to girlhood in the morning, when we will make up with Mr. John; for he sends these chocolate-creams to let you know that he is sorry.”

“So we will, dear,” said Mollie, tucking Helena’s head under her chin.  “You were always wiser than your mother, child.”

THE LARGEST VOLCANO IN THE WORLD

BY SARAH COAN.

[Illustration:  THE LAKE OF FIRE.]

    “Why, it isn’t on the top of a mountain at all!  What a humbug my
    geography must have been!”

So wrote a little fellow to a young friend in America.

He was right.  It isn’t on the top of a mountain, though the geographies do say, “A volcano is a mountain sending forth fire, smoke and lava,” and give the picture of a mountain smoking at the top.