nary for young ladies blue. But she was
overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by May with much ceremony
and rejoicing.

I don't think any one had tasted it, when there came another tap at the
door, and the same man appeared again, having under his arm a vast
brown-paper parcel.

"Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few toys for the Babby.
They ain't ugly."

After the delivery of which expressions, he retired again.

The whole party would have experienced great difficulty in finding words
for their astonishment, even if they had had ample time to seek them.
But they had none at all; for the messenger had scarcely shut the door
behind him, when there came another tap, and Tackleton himself walked
in.

"Mrs. Peerybingle!" said the toy merchant, hat in hand, "I'm sorry. I'm
more sorry than I was this morning. I have had time to think of it. John
Peerybingle! I am sour by disposition; but I can't help being sweetened,
more or less, by coming face to face with such a man as you. Caleb! This
unconscious little nurse gave me a broken hint last night, of which I
have found the thread. I blush to think how easily I might have bound
you and your daughter to me, and what a miserable idiot I was when I
took her for one! Friends, one and all, my house is very lonely
to-night. I have not so much as a Cricket on my Hearth. I have scared
them all away. Be gracious to me: let me join this happy party!"

He was at home in five minutes. You never saw such a fellow. What _had_
he been doing with himself all his life, never to have known before his
great capacity of being jovial? Or what had the Fairies been doing with
him, to have effected such a change?

"John! you won't send me home this evening, will you?" whispered Dot.

He had been very near it, though.

There wanted but one living creature to make the party complete; and, in
the twinkling of an eye, there he was, very thirsty with hard running,
and engaged in hopeless endeavours to squeeze his head into a narrow
pitcher. He had gone with the cart to its journey's end, very much
disgusted with the absence of his master, and stupendously rebellious to
the Deputy. After lingering about the stable for some little time,
vainly attempting to incite the old horse to the mutinous act of
returning on his own account, he had walked into the taproom, and laid
himself down before the fire. But, suddenly yielding to the conviction
that the Deputy was a humbug, and must