uess, though the landlady little imagined
what queer places and people Olive had been visiting in her sleep.

The dwarf was a well-known person thereabouts, and a very harmless,
kindly little man. A present of a couple of marks sent him off to his
cottage near by very happy indeed, and when Uncle returned a few minutes
later to see if the wanderer had been heard of, you can imagine how
thankful he was to find her. It was not so _very_ late after all, not
above half-past ten o'clock, but a thunderstorm which came on not long
after explained the unusual darkness of the cloud-covered sky.

"_What_ a good thing you were safe before the storm came on!" said
Auntie, with a shudder at the thought of the dangers her darling had
escaped. "I will take care never again to carry my jokes too far," she
resolved, when Olive had confided to her the real motive of her
wanderings in the wood. And Olive, for her part, decided that she would
be content with fairies and dwarfs in books and fancy, without trying to
find them in reality.

"Though all the same," she said to herself, "I should have liked to
taste the roast fir-cones. They did smell so good!" "And, Auntie," she
said aloud, "were you singing in the wood on your way home with Uncle
and Rex?"

"Yes," said Auntie, "they begged me to sing 'Home, sweet Home.' Why do
you ask me?"

Olive explained. "So it was _your_ voice I heard when I thought it was
the dwarfs," she said, smiling.

And Auntie gave her still another kiss.

THE END

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh._

* * * * *

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Mr. EDWARD SALMON, writing in the _Nineteenth Century_, October 1887,
said: "I have left till the last any mention of the lady who, by right
of merit, should stand first. Mrs. Molesworth is, in my opinion,
considering the quality and quantity of her labours, the best
story-teller for children England has yet known. This is a bold
statement and requires substantiation. Mrs. Molesworth, during the last
six years, has never failed to occupy a prominent place among the
juvenile writers of the season. . . . Mrs. Molesworth's great charm is
her realism--realism, that is, in the purest and highest sense. . . .
Mrs. Molesworth's children are finished studies. She is never sentimental,
but writes common sense in a straightforward manner. A joyous earnest
spirit pervades her work, and her sympathy is unbounded. She loves them
wit