led up in my arms like a white puff-ball,
while Dora ran races all along the beach with Snip.

I forgot to tell you that Randolph had been behaving badly all the way,
teasing us girls, pinching the dogs, and making fun of Jane; but the
terrible thing of all did not happen till we were crossing over to the
island. We always lay a board across from a rock on the beach side to a
rock on the island side, and over that we girls walk, though the boys
generally wade right through the water.

[Illustration: HOW WE LOOKED JUST BEFORE _IT_ HAPPENED.]

Fan and Jane went first on the board, then Dora and Snip, and last
Moppet and me.

Now listen, my Clytie, though, without having seen it, you never can
quite know how perfectly terrible it was. Just as Dora and Snip were in
the very middle of the board, and _all_ of us were _on_ it, Randolph,
who was standing in the water, gave a most unearthly screech, and at
that very minute-- But, mercy me! there's the tea-bell, and you _must_
excuse me, my lamb, for leaving you right here, for how can I help it
when I smell _waffles_?--waffles, and muffins too, I think.

In greatest haste,
Your own mamma,
BESSIE.

P.S.--It _was_ waffles I smelled, and I thought of you, dear Clytie, as
I ate them. Now I shall have to leave my story of Randolph at its very
smilax (or climax, which is it?), and finish it in my next letter, for I
have written so much my fingers are all cramped up; so good-night.

THE PITIFUL HARE.

FROM THE JAPANESE, BY W. E. GRIFFIS.

Hares are always treated kindly by the Chinese and Japanese people, who
make household pets of them. The Chinese believe that the hare lives to
be a thousand years old, and that at the end of five centuries its hair
becomes white. Instead of seeing a man in the moon, they imagine they
see a hare standing on its hind-legs, and pounding drugs in a mortar.
There are great creatures like gigantic men, called genii, who live in
the moon, and make "the elixir of life," a draught of which confers very
long life. The hare is their steward, and spends his time in pounding
the precious roots and bark of the "tree of the king of drugs," from
which the elixir is made. In the Japanese fairy tales, whoever smells,
touches, or tastes of this tree is immediately healed of all disease.

The country folks in Japan believe a great deal more in the influence of
the moon on crops, and good luck, and the weather, than our farmers do,
and some of