morning. They would not have missed a parade on any account
whatever, that is, all except Charley, and he enjoyed it almost as
much as the rest. They were so enthusiastic and glowing in their
descriptions. They even went to a stag-dance at night, and almost
killed themselves laughing at the cadets.

This stag-dance is performed on the green. A ring is formed, and a
tallow candle is stuck in a cut potato, and placed at intervals round
the circle; and within this not very brilliant illumination, the
cadets dance with each other to the excellent music of the band. Those
who personate ladies, take hold of their little bob-tailed jackets,
and prink and mince, and take fine airs upon themselves, and look so
precisely like fine ladies, that the real fine ladies looking at them,
want to give them a good shaking.

But the children went off into fits of laughter at the long and
quizzical shadows on the ground. When the cadets dance a figure, their
shadows look like a company of sickly, melancholy monkeys, which dodge
about in a distracting way, and look so irresistibly funny, that
everybody shouts with laughter--and it is a very merry spectacle.

Then this pleasant family had the most delightful tea parties in an
arbor at the back of the house. To be sure the ear-wigs and
daddy-long-legs, _would_ drop into their tea once in a while, making
them first squeal, and jump up, and then laugh, and a grasshopper or
two, _would_ hop suddenly on the cake, and hop more suddenly off,
before they could catch him; but what of that? Some people shriek so
if a grasshopper hops near them, you would think it was an elephant
come to pack them up in his trunk, for the rest of their lives; but
these children had more sense, and did not mind a little insect a
thousand times smaller than themselves.

* * * * *

And now I must come to a sad, sad part of my story--I dread to begin
it--and would gladly have told you a great deal more about the
fairies, and what they did for Charley; but Mr. Appleton says, you
would not like to have the same story go through two books, and this,
I am afraid, is already too long.

But I must relate one circumstance. Charley had retired to his little
bed one evening earlier than usual; dark, lowering clouds had sped
quickly over the sky, soon after he fell asleep. The tops of the high
trees, skirting the fairy hollow, waved restlessly to and fro, and the
angry growls of the thunder port