ften at quite a long distance from where it went under.

NAN'S PEACE-OFFERING.

BY KATE W. HAMILTON.

"Just wish I was properer, and everything--so there!" said Nannie,
sitting discontentedly down upon the green grass by the road-side, and
surveying herself with a pair of very serious brown eyes.

It was a forlorn little self, surely, with wet dress, muddy shoes, inky
apron, and crumpled sun-bonnet.

"Aunt S'mantha'll think I'm dreadful. She says I never have any
forethought; but I have lots of after-thoughts, and I s'pose folks
can't have both kinds. It don't do any good, either. Oh dear!"

There was a whistled tune coming up the road. Tommy Grey was attached
to it, but the whistle seemed much the older and more important of the
two, and was first to reach the tree where Nannie was sitting. When
Tommy caught up with it, he stopped in surprise.

"Hello, Nan Verling! Is that you?"

"I suppose so, but I wish it wasn't," answered Nannie, dolefully.

"What for?" questioned Tommy, in still further astonishment.

"'Cause I wish I was somebody else that wasn't all wrinkled and mussed
up. I don't see how folks can keep nice and have good times, anyway,"
declared Nan, in a burst of confidence. "You see, I just helped sail
boats in the brook, and I didn't know my dress was wet a bit till I
came away; and then Lizzie Sykes tagged me, and course I had to tag her
back again. I don't know what made her run right through the mud, where
I couldn't catch her without getting my shoes all muddy. Should think
she might have known better! My old ink-stand at school is always
upsetting itself, and it had to spill on my clean white apron this
afternoon. Then my sun-bonnet--"

"Looks as if you'd hung it up in your pocket," suggested Tommy.

"Well, I didn't; I only rolled it up for a rag-baby when we played keep
house at recess. I s'pose it's bad for bonnets, but it made the
beautifulest kind of a baby," said Nannie, a little ray of enthusiasm
gleaming through her despondency. "But Aunt S'mantha doesn't 'preciate
such things," she added, mournfully.

"No," answered Tommy, sympathetically. "She'll scold, may be?"

"P'r'aps so. May be she'll send me to bed without any supper."

"Whew! That a'nt any fun, I tell you!" declared Tommy. "Why, a fellow
just tumbles and tumbles, and gets hungrier and hungrier, and wonders
what the folks have got for supper, and looks at the stars, and tries
to say 'Hickory-dickory-dock' backward