mischief as an egg is full of meat, and he always went so seriously to
work, with such a grave twinkle in his bright, blue eyes, that you could
not help laughing if you were ever so angry.

One morning he was alone in the parlor, sitting in his little arm-chair;
a pair of old spectacles, which he had picked up somewhere, perched on
the end of his little nose, and one leg nursed up on the other, "just
like grandpa," as he said. He was pretending to read the newspaper.

Presently he rose up, stretched his little legs, (and very fine legs
they were,) the stockings upon which were tightly gartered above the
knee, and pushing the spectacles up on the top of his forehead, as he
had seen his grandfather do, he said to himself, "Dear me! very little
news in the paper to-day! Only the quarantine burned down. I wish _I_
had been there! What fun! to run all round with my little pail full of
water, and help to put it out! I wish they would set something else on
fire in the day time, and give a _man_ a chance to see it! I wonder what
I shall do next?" and Peter approached the window and looked out.

It was a still, lovely day; the sun sailed slowly up in the heavens, and
the blue and rippling waters caught his richest beams. Numerous crafts
crept lazily along, their snowy sails looking, in the distance, like the
listless wings of great white birds resting upon the waves. Upon the
pillars of the piazza the vines hung in rich festoons, and the naked
arms of one great tree near by (which, from some cause, was dead) were
perfectly covered with a prodigal and splendid flowering vine,
presenting a strange but graceful and beautiful appearance, a monument
to the exquisite and subtle taste which had spared it for this purpose.

Peter, young as he was, felt the witching influence of this lovely
scene. He watched, with intense interest, a flock of birds high up in
the heavens, wheeling swiftly round, and darting here and there, happy,
joyous and free; and then he turned to look at a little singing bird of
his sister's, imprisoned in a cage, hanging in the window.

"Well," said Peter, "it is a real shame to lock up this little bird,
when its father and mother, uncles and aunts, godfathers and godmothers,
and ever so many cousins, are running about in the sky, doing exactly as
they please--that's a fact! I'll just let him out," and he opened the
door of the cage.

In an instant the little bird flew out, darted through the window, and
was