[Illustration:  UNHAPPY.]

“’Well, you know, I must not make my letter too long.  Tell Susette that things look brighter now in her old home; that Pierre has found some work in our garden, and his sister comes now and then to your aunt’s house; and that we will look after them a little, and send you more news soon.

“’Mamma sends ever so much love, and many, many thanks to dear grandmamma for offering to house her tiresome chicks for a few more months.  What a grand, happy Christmas we will have together!  That is, if only I can get mamma well enough to brave an English winter.  Poor mamma wants sadly to get a sight of her baby.—­Ever your affectionate

“‘FATHER.’”

That was the letter, reader.  Don’t you think it was well worth waiting for?

X.

AUTUMN DAYS.

“What an idea, papa talking about Christmas!” Alick said, when we came to the end of the letter; and it did seem funny that hot autumn afternoon, when all the leaves were in a glow, looking as if they had been burnt up so long they couldn’t and wouldn’t bear it any longer!  Perhaps they meant to come down.  But I suppose, now I come to think of it, that months don’t seem so never-ending to grown-up people as they do to children; they are more prepared to see the time fly, you don’t know how, so they are not surprised when they find it gone.  Besides, you see, they don’t get taller and taller as the months pass, so, of course, the time must seem to run past very quickly, they standing still all the while!  How odd it must be!  I heard a little boy remonstrating last night—­

“Well, but, uncle, if you keep your clothes till next year they’ll be ever so much too small for you!”

Everybody laughed, and told him that uncle, being six feet high, didn’t expect to grow any more; and, of course, as I said before, if Alick’s papa stood still, the time would seem to go very quickly.

And so, I suppose, when the end of October came, he didn’t cry out as we did all of a sudden:  “I do declare it is not quite two months to Christmas!”

It was one damp, misty afternoon, and Lottie, and Alick, and I were learning our lessons all alone in the school-room.  We were trying to get the last glimmer of daylight at the window, but it was hardly enough to see what six times nine might be, and that was my great difficulty.

You know, don’t you? how the things that “you do so want to say” will come into your head just when you ought to be very silent and busy!  It’s very odd; but even now that I am old enough to know better, I never want so much to talk as just when I ought to be quiet.  I wonder how it is?  Anyhow, it seemed quite impossible to hold one’s tongue that afternoon.  Alick was as busy and quiet as could be, working out a hard sum on his slate, but even he looked up when Lottie started that wonderful idea about Christmas; and then