ing. The doctor says
it won't be so very long now before you can be out again, and this
afternoon we'll play some nice game or other that you can play in bed.
Now what would you like it to be?" But before Teddy could answer she
added, "Oh dear! There comes Aunt Mariah."

Aunt Mariah lived down at the other end of the village, and she
generally came every fortnight to spend an afternoon with Teddy's
mother. She always brought her knitting in a bag, and a white net cap
that she put on before the glass as soon as she had taken her bonnet
off.

Teddy liked to have her come, her needles flew so fast, and she used to
recite to him,--

"A was an archer, and shot at a frog;
B was a butcher, and had a great dog."

Then when he was tired of sitting with her and mamma, he could run
out-of-doors and play.

But he found it was different to-day from what it had been before. He
was still weak from his illness, and after she had told him all the
verses that she knew, he grew weary of hearing her talk of Cousin
George's wife, and Mrs. Appleby's rheumatism.

His mother saw that he was growing restless and that his cheeks were
flushed, so she asked Aunt Mariah to come over to her room to look at
some calico she had been buying.

When they had gone Teddy lay for a time enjoying the silence of the
room, but after a while it began to seem too still and the clock ticked
with a strange loud sound. He wished Aunt Mariah would go away and let
mamma come back again. It was so lonely, and he was tired of his books.

He was lying on his back, and presently he drew up his knees, and then
over the tops of them he could only see the upper half of the window,
and the tips of the pine-trees against the still blue sky outside.

"Oh dear, dear, dear!" said the Counterpane Fairy's voice just behind
the hill. "Steeper than ever to-day. Will I ever get to the top?" A
minute after he saw her little figure standing on the hill, dark against
the sky, and the staff in her hand like a thin black line.

"Oh, dear Counterpane Fairy!" cried Teddy, "have you come to show me
another story?"

"Are you sure you want to see one?" asked the Counterpane Fairy.

"Oh, yes, yes, I do!" cried Teddy. "Your stories don't make me feel
tired the way Aunt Mariah's do."

The fairy shook her head. "I thought her stories were very pleasant,"
she said.

"So they are," said Teddy, "but I like her stories best when I'm all
well, and I like your stories best wh