very sorry I had been so
thoughtless. Tom bore my teasing manfully; but Nelly's face was rather
grave, as if she did not like such remarks to be made about her; so I
hurried on to the Fat Gentleman's story, and brought up at the end, and
then handed round the candy, amid general approbation.

How we all passed that evening together on the beach, and had a wildly
happy time; how we went in bathing the next day, and the next; and how,
on Wednesday afternoon, I bid a most reluctant good-by to my little
neighbors, I have not room to tell. I want to write how gladly we met
again in the city in the fall; how Tom did come to live in New York, and
favored us with his company as often as possible; how we chanced again
on the little girl whom we had met in the toy shop, and found her living
in a wretched tenement house in Cherry street, whence Mr. Lawson and I,
with some other friends, removed them in haste, and established them in
a nice little thread-needle store on one of the business avenues not far
from our street; but all this would take too long.

I must say, though, what a blessed change it has been for them,
particularly for poor little crippled Clara, who never fails to greet us
with a smile when we go there to see her, as she sits in her comfortable
arm-chair by the window, with her pet spaniel "Dandy" beside her. She is
always contented and cheerful, in spite of the sharp pain that often
racks her slender limbs; and as I look on her pale face, which is so
plainly not long for this earth, and think that now her suffering life
will end amid comfort and peace, I whisper to myself with a heart full
of love, "All this through thy sweet influence, dear

"NEIGHBOR NELLY!"

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Quarrelling.

CONCLUSION.

AND that was the end of the famous Sock Stories, which had afforded
George and Helen so much amusement during nearly three months; for it
took all that time for Aunt Fanny's daughter to write, and the children
to read them all. They could not tell which they liked the best; for it
so happened that the "Funny Little Socks" made their appearance just at
the time when some dear little cousins of theirs, only four or five
years old, had come to spend a week or two with them, which made baby
stories doubly welcome; and I don't know what the good and delightful
gentleman to whom the fifth book is dedicated will say about it, when he
sees his name at the front; but it was thought v