dolls' wash
and did not get ironed on Saturday night, and the Highlander, whose
things wouldn't come off, and who slept in his kilt. Not bear you?
Nonsense! You must go to bed, my dear. I've got other things to do, and
I can't leave you lying about.'

"'The whole lot of you did not weigh one quarter of what I do,' I cried
desperately. 'I cannot and will not get into that bed; I should break
it all to pieces, and hurt myself into the bargain.'

"'Well, if you will not go to bed I must put you there,' said Rosa, and
without more ado, she snatched me up in her kid arms, and laid me down.

"Of course it was just as I expected. I had hardly touched the two
little pillows (they had a meal-baggy smell from being stuffed with
bran), when the woodwork gave way with a crash, and I
fell--fell--fell--

"Though I fully believed every bone in my body to be broken, it was
really a relief to get to the ground. As soon as I could, I sat up, and
felt myself all over. A little stiff, but, as it seemed, unhurt. Oddly
enough, I found that I was back again under the tree; and more strange
still, it was not the tree where I sat with Rosa, but the old oak-tree
in the little wood. Was it all a dream? The toys had vanished, the
lights were out, the mosses looked dull in the growing dusk, the
evening was chilly, the hole no larger than it was thirty years ago,
and when I felt in my pocket for my spectacles I found that they were
on my nose.

"I have returned to the spot many times since, but I never could induce
a beetle to enter into conversation on the subject, the hole remains
obstinately impassable, and I have not been able to repeat my visit to
the Land of Lost Toys.

"When I recall my many sins against the playthings of my childhood, I
am constrained humbly to acknowledge that perhaps this is just as
well."

* * * * *

SAM SETS UP SHOP.

"I think you might help me, Dot," cried Sam, in dismal and rather
injured tones.

It was the morning following the day of the earthquake, and of Aunt
Penelope's arrival. Sam had his back to Dot, and his face to the fire,
over which indeed he had bent for so long that he appeared to be half
roasted.

"What do you want?" asked Dot, who was working at a doll's night-dress
that had for long been partly finished, and now seemed in a fair way to
completion.

"It's the glue-pot," Sam continued. "It does take so long to boil. And
I have been stirring at the glue wi