, is that
devoted to wax dolls. There are other beds for the commoner dolls--for
the rag dolls, and the china dolls, and the rubber dolls, but of
course wax dolls would look much handsomer growing. Wax dolls have
to be planted quite early in the season; for they need a good start
before the sun is very high. The seeds are the loveliest bits of
microscopic dolls imaginable. The Monks sow them pretty close
together, and they begin to come up by the middle of May. There is
first just a little glimmer of gold, or flaxen, or black, or brown as
the case may be, above the soil. Then the snowy foreheads appear, and
the blue eyes, and black eyes, and, later on, all those enchanting
little heads are out of the ground, and are nodding and winking and
smiling to each other the whole extent of the field; with their pinky
cheeks and sparkling eyes and curly hair there is nothing so pretty as
these little wax doll heads peeping out of the earth. Gradually, more
and more of them come to light, and finally by Christmas they are all
ready to gather. There they stand, swaying to and fro, and dancing
lightly on their slender feet which are connected with the ground,
each by a tiny green stem; their dresses of pink, or blue, or
white--for their dresses grow with them--flutter in the air. Just
about the prettiest sight in the world, is the bed of wax dolls in the
garden of the Christmas Monks at Christmas time.

Of course ever since this convent and garden were established (and
that was so long ago that the wisest man can find no books about it)
their glories have attracted a vast deal of admiration and curiosity
from the young people in the surrounding country; but as the garden is
enclosed on all sides by an immensely thick and high hedge, which no
boy could climb, or peep over, they could only judge of the garden by
the fruits which were parcelled out to them on Christmas-day.

You can judge, then, of the sensation among the young folks, and older
ones, for that matter, when one evening there appeared hung upon a
conspicuous place in the garden-hedge, a broad strip of white cloth
trimmed with evergreen and printed with the following notice in
evergreen letters:

"WANTED:--By the Christmas Monks, two _good_ boys to assist in
garden work. Applicants will be examined by Fathers Anselmus and
Ambrose, in the convent refectory, on April 10th."

This notice was hung out about five o'clock in the evening, some time
in the early p