mother calls them, and he knows so many funny stories!
Mother tries very hard not to laugh at them; but she can't always help
it."

The evening passed so quickly that it was bed-time before either of them
realised it. Mrs. French took the large square pillows off the bed, and
laid one of the silken spreads over the footboard. How beautiful and
soft they were, with great flowers so natural it seemed as if you could
pick them up! And the fragrance was so delicate and puzzling: one moment
you thought it violets, then it suggested roses and lilies and the smell
of newly cut grass.

Mrs. French kissed her, and said if she felt strange in the night to
call her; but she was asleep in five minutes, and never woke until quite
in the morning, it was so much more quiet than in First Street.

When she did sit up in the bed and glance around, she had a queer
feeling that she was a part of a fairy story, like the white cat in her
enchanted palace, waiting for the Prince, or perhaps Psyche, blown from
the hill-top to her beautiful place of refuge, where she found and lost
Love, and had to do many hard tasks before she could regain him.

She was quite sure, an hour or two later, that she _was_ in some
enchanted realm. There were such queer things,--some beautiful, and some
she thought very ugly, especially the grotesque idols.

"I couldn't believe a god like that had any power. And I am sure I
couldn't worship him," Hanny said emphatically.

"They beat their gods sometimes and break them to pieces, and go off and
get new ones. It seems very singular to us."

The little girl had been deeply interested in Judson, the missionary to
Burmah. There had been a good deal of romance about his last marriage,
to "Fanny Forester," who wrote tales and sketches and poems, and had
made herself quite a name for brightness and gay humour, and then had
surprised her friends by going to India as a missionary's wife. And she
knew Bishop Heber's beautiful poem to his wife all by heart, and often
sang "From Greenland's icy mountains." So she had a feeling that she did
know something about India.

But Mrs. French had really been there, and spent two months at Bombay,
and almost six months at Calcutta. There were so many gorgeous
things,--silks, and bright stuffs with threads of gold, jackets all
embroidery, and queer Eastern dresses, two made of pineapple cloth,--a
sheer, beautiful fabric,--and one had delicate flowers embroidered in
silk.

But t