u, Mr. Giant.'

"And though it is a very, very long time since all that happened, it has
never been quite forgotten, and the people of that country are noted for
their healthy happy faces, and the little children for their rosy cheeks
and golden hair."

Mabel stopped.

"It is a very pretty story," said Percy. "Are there more like it in the
book where you read it?"

Mabel was just going to answer, when her attention was caught by Ted.

"I do believe he's asleep," she said softly, for Ted had curled himself
up like a dormouse in his little nest at her side. But just then the
two-legged dormouse gave a funny chuckle, which showed that whether he
_had_ been asleep or not, he certainly was so no longer.

"What are you laughing at, Teddy?" said Percy.

"I were just sinking," said Ted, "what a silly boy Ted were to be afraid
of mountains----Ted would like to go up to the very, very top," he went
on valorously. "Ted wouldn't mind a bit--not," with a prudent reservation,
"not if thoo and Mabel was wif me."

CHAPTER VI.

LITTLE NARCISSA.

"But, I think, of all new-comers
Little children are the best."

From this time, I think, Ted lost his fear of mountains and giants. It
was not till a long time afterwards that he explained to his mother
exactly how it had been, and by that time he was of course quite big
enough to understand that Mr. Brand had only been joking. But still
he did not much care about seeing that gentleman again. He generally
managed to be out of the way when he saw the dog-cart with the gray
horse driving in at the gate, and just once, when he would not have had
time to run off without actual rudeness, which little Ted _never_ was
guilty of, he only waited to shake hands and say "Quite well, thank
thoo," before he disappeared in so unaccountable a manner that he could
not be found as long as Mr. Brand's visit lasted.

It was a good deal thanks to Mabel's story that he grew to like his
old friend the mountain again. But partly too, I daresay, he forgot
his fears on account of several very interesting things that happened
about this time. It was a great sorrow to him when Percy had to go back
to school--that was one of little Ted's lasting or rather returning
sorrows, all through his childhood. Only, like many things in our lives,
if we learn to look at them in the right way, it was certainly a trouble
with a bright side to it, a cloud with a silver lining--a silver lining
which shone i