thank Mercy with his great deep dark
eyes.

14. "Now, poor old fellow, I think you will do," said the child. "I
could not bear to leave you out this bitter night, and now I must be
getting home, for the snow has soaked through my boots."

15. She stopped fondling and stroking the donkey, but he would follow
her, rubbing his soft nose against her hand. "Oh, go back again, do,
dear Brownie!" she said.

[Illustration: THE OLD SHED.]

16. "You really must not come out with me!" Shutting the little gate,
which had once been the front door of the pigsty, she ran back to the
cottage.

* * * * *

_Write:_ At last the little girl thought of a shed. It was at the end
of the garden, and it was a clean place. She put the donkey there and
fed him well.

Questions: 1. What thought struck Mercy as she was going
back? 2. What sort of shed was it? 3. What did she do for
Brownie first? 4. What did she give him to lie on? 5. What
did she find for him to eat? 6. What did she give him
besides food?

4. A HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

1. But when she came to the back door at which she had come out, Mercy
found a great trouble. She lifted the latch, but the door did not open.

2. She gave a pull, a second pull, and then a tug with all her might;
but it still held fast. "Why," she thought, "I am as badly off as the
donkey. I shall have to go into the pigsty with him!"

3. She had been out much longer than she thought. And while she had
been taking care of Brownie her father had turned the big key in the
door and gone to bed.

4. What was to be done? It would never do to wake up poor tired
father, and bring him out in the cold too. So she stood there trying to
puzzle out some plan for getting in.

5. The bright moonlight showed her a way to do it. The cottage was a
low one, and just under the window of the room where she and Nelly
slept, was a bench.

6. Standing on tiptoe upon this, Mercy found that she could reach the
branches of an old vine tree, which grew over the walls of the little
house.

7. She could climb up into this, and so get near the bedroom window. It
was easy enough to scramble up in summer time, but not so easy now.

8. The boughs were a sheet of ice, and her fingers so cold that they
could hardly take hold of them. At last, after many slips and frights,
she was safely up.

9. But what would little Nelly think of seeing her sister outside the
window, asking