was very uncomfortable, both in Leafland and Netherworld.

Just at this time a gay young Chipmonk appeared upon the scene,--a
careless, dashing, saucy fellow, very popular among the young
Leaflanders of the rapid sort. He came skipping and frisking into
Nutham, as his manner was, both pockets full of corn which he had
_confiscated_, he remarked significantly, from a field down yonder. He
nodded jauntily right and left, and then disposed himself comfortably in
a corner, and began cracking his dainties in a very free-and-easy
manner, not noticing the woe-begone aspect of his friends. All at once,
however, he awoke to a realizing sense of things, and showed his
sympathy after his own fashion, by giving a sudden flirt with his tail,
and calling out, irreverently, "What's the row?"

Amid tears and sighs, the sad story was related to him, in all its
length and breadth and thickness; but, instead of the answering tear and
sigh which his auditors expected, he only thrust his paws into his
pockets, and whisked his tail over his back in frantic convulsions of
laughter; muttering, as breath came to him in the pauses, "O, what a
gony! For that matter, O, what a pack of gonies!"

Now the Leaflanders were quite too well-bred ever to have used or heard
so barbarous a word as "gony." Nevertheless, reason and instinct both
taught them, as it will teach all people of refined sensibilities, that
to be called a gony is to be called something very disagreeable; and if
anything can heighten the unpleasant sensation, it is to be called "a
pack of gonies." Consequently the Leaflanders began to look at each
other blankly, and even to suspect that possibly they had been making
fools of themselves. But Chipmonk did not leave them long in suspense.
"Your terrible Red-coats are your own selves," he cried. "I have heard
of people being frightened by their own shadow; but never, in all my
born days, did I hear of any one being frightened by his own shine."

"Now will you explain yourself?" cried one of the young ladies, her
curiosity getting the better of her chagrin. All the old men and the
young men were longing to know, but were too proud to ask; but the
question being asked for them, they were glad enough to crowd in, and
hear the answer.

"It is only this, and nothing more," answered Chipmonk, ejecting a
pine-seed from his mouth. "You are all going to have a new suit of
clothes, more splendid than you ever saw in your lives,--yellow and
b