w crying with disappointment.

Soon she came down again, with a fairy book in one hand, and a box of
chocolate drops in the other. The sweets had been a present, but
hitherto her mother had allowed her to have only one or two daily; now,
however, she might do as she liked, and at present her idea of perfect
bliss was the combined charms of chocolate drops and fairy stories.

[Illustration: "_Carried it like a baby_."]

For about two hours she sat in the garden; then she grew tired, and a
little sick from eating too much chocolate, and was returning to the
house, when her pet kitten ran out to meet her. For a short time she
amused herself by playing with it, dressing it up in her pocket
handkerchief and carrying it like a baby; but Miss Pussy wearied of
this, and at last jumped out of her new dress and her mistress' arms,
leaving a scratch as a keepsake behind her.

Altogether, the morning was hardly a successful one, nor was the
afternoon much better. After dinner, one of Amy's little sisters tore
her dress, and was running to Amy to ask her to mend it; but Mrs. Leslie
said:--

"Don't go to your sister, my child, come to me;" and little Jessie,
wondering, let her mother darn the rent. Amy felt very uncomfortable,
for she knew that Mrs. Leslie's eyes were not strong, and were probably
aching with the effort of such fine work; but she shrank from offering
her services, and made her escape from the room as soon as she could.

In the evening she was about to draw her chair to the fire and read the
newspaper to Mr. Leslie, a duty of which she had always felt rather
proud; but her father gravely took the paper out of her hand, saying
quickly, "No, Amy, this is a duty; remember you are to amuse yourself
and do nothing else."

Amy's eyes filled with tears, and she ran up stairs to her own room. She
had no heart to read the fairy book, or to make clothes for her doll, or
to play with the kitten, or even to eat the rest of her chocolate drops.

"I shall never be able to bear another day of this," she said to
herself; "I thought it would be so delightful to have no duties, but
somehow my play does not seem half so good as it did before."

The next day brought no real pleasure and comfort. Listlessly Amy
wandered about, having no zest for any of her former amusements, and
feeling thoroughly unhappy. She began to long for the very duties which
had seemed so irksome to her; she could hardly keep from tears when she
saw othe