hrust their starry faces through
The vines about the paling.

But when at last the thrifty sun
A work-day world arouses,
Hers gather up their dainty skirts
And vanish in their houses.

They draw their silken curtains close,
There's not a soul can find them;
And mine run up the school-house path,
And shut the door behind them!

* * * * *

[Illustration]

It was a fair Artist named May
If you looked at her sketch she would say,
"It's horrid, I know--
If you please _wont_ you go,
I'm not in the humor today."

LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.

BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII.

On the following Sunday morning, Mr. Mordaunt had a large congregation.
Indeed, he could scarcely remember any Sunday on which the church had
been so crowded. People appeared upon the scene who seldom did him the
honor of coming to hear his sermons. There were even people from
Hazelton, which was the next parish. There were hearty, sunburned
farmers, stout, comfortable, apple-cheeked wives in their best bonnets
and most gorgeous shawls, and half a dozen children or so to each
family. The doctor's wife was there, with her four daughters. Mrs.
Kimsey and Mr. Kimsey, who kept the druggist's shop, and made pills, and
did up powders for everybody within ten miles, sat in their pew; Mrs.
Dibble in hers, Miss Smiff, the village dressmaker, and her friend Miss
Perkins, the milliner, sat in theirs; the doctor's young man was
present, and the druggist's apprentice; in fact, almost every family on
the county side was represented, in one way or another.

In the course of the preceding week, many wonderful stories had been
told of little Lord Fauntleroy. Mrs. Dibble had been kept so busy
attending to customers who came in to buy a pennyworth of needles or a
ha'p'orth of tape and to hear what she had to relate, that the little
shop bell over the door had nearly tinkled itself to death over the
coming and going. Mrs. Dibble knew exactly how his small lordship's
rooms had been furnished for him, what expensive toys had been bought,
how there was a beautiful brown pony awaiting him, and a small groom to
attend it, and a little dog-cart, with silver-mounted harness. And she
could tell, too, what all the servants had said when they had caught
glimpses of the child on the night of his arrival; and how every female
below stairs had s