crawl, if he can't walk yet. Bless him! But I must
not write on him any more; he is so soft, and I
have nothing but steel pens.

"Now good-by; give my love to everybody, and my
compliments to all the rest, and believe me, up
hill and down dale,

"Your affectionate neighbor,
"JOSIAH OLDBIRD."

Then I put my letter in a flag envelope, sealed it up tight, and wrote
on it, "To my dear Neighbor Nelly," and had the maid take it to her.

Presently I could see two little figures flitting about in one of the
upper chambers, and soon after all four of us, Nelly, Jimmy, I, and
Gipsey, were in the street. Gipsey was a "toy terrier" that ought to
have belonged to "Commodore Nutt," the dwarf at "Barnum's," and ran
along on three legs most of the time, with the fourth, and his
cork-screw tail elevated in the air for joy at being allowed to join the
party; while the children were all hop, skip, and jump, and kept tight
hold of a hand of mine apiece, as though they were afraid of flying away
if they let go. Meanwhile, I walked quietly along, with my market basket
on my arm, a sober old bachelor. I expect the people who passed us in
the street thought me a rather incongruous addition to such a frisky
party; but then, you know, children _must_ caper about. Bless your
heart! it would never do in the world to see children mincing solemnly
along, like little old men and women; it would be as absurd as to have
my Neighbor Nelly wearing her great-grandmother's coal-scuttle bonnet!
The last idea struck me as so odd, that I drew a little picture of
Neighbor Nelly in this guise when I got home, and here it is. How do you
like it?

[Illustration]

We thought we would go to market first. So we walked slowly down Fourth
Avenue, and crossed over to the market where the Seventh Regiment armory
is, opposite the Cooper Institute.

"My cousin is a Seventh Regimenter!" said Jimmy as we climbed up the
iron steps; "he often let us look on at his company drills last winter,
and afterward Nelly and I drilled in our yard. The big boy who comes to
see the old ladies next door, looked over the fence and laughed at us,
but we didn't care; and we mean to fight for our country like everything
when we are bigger; that is, I mean to, and Nelly would like to, but
she's only a girl, you know."

"Only a girl!" repeated Nelly, tossing her lon