e Sweet-pea among the rest on the table, and so the
brothers met at last.

The young couple sat hand in hand in the sunshine, and talked of the
past.

"Time seemed to go slowly while we were parted," said the young man;
"and now, to look back upon, all our misery seems but a dream."

"That is just what _we_ feel," said the Sweet-peas.

"I was very sad," said the young girl softly, "very sad indeed; for, I
thought you might be dead, or have married some one else, and that we
might never meet again. But in spite of everything I couldn't quite
despair. It seemed impossible that those who really loved each other
should be separated for ever."

Meanwhile the Sweet-peas lay on the table. They were very happy, but
just a little anxious, for the lovers had forgotten to put them in
water, and they were fading fast.

"We are very happy," they murmured, "very happy. This moment alone is
worth all that we have endured. It is true we are fading before we have
ever fully bloomed, and after this we do not know what will happen to
us. But the young girl is right. One cannot quite despair. It seems
impossible that those who really love each other should be separated for
ever."

COUSIN PEREGRINE'S WONDER STORIES.

THE CHINESE JUGGLERS, AND THE ENGLISHMAN'S HANDS.

(_Founded on Fact_.)

Cousin Peregrine had never been away quite so long before. He had been
in the East, and the latter part of his absence from home had been spent
not only in a foreign country, but in parts of it where Englishmen had
seldom been before, and amid the miserable scenes of war.

However, he was at home at last, very much to the satisfaction of his
young cousins, and also to his own. They had been assured by him, in a
highly illustrated letter, that his arms were safe and sound in his
coat-sleeves, that he had no wooden legs, and that they might feel him
all over for wounds as hard as they liked. Only Maggie, the eldest,
could even fancy she remembered Cousin Peregrine, but they all seemed
to know him by his letters, even before he arrived. At last he came.

Cousin Peregrine was dressed like other people, much to the
disappointment of his young relatives, who when they burst (with more or
less attention to etiquette) into the dining-room with the dessert, were
in full expectation of seeing him in his uniform, or at least with his
latest medal pinned to his dress-coat.

Perhaps it was because Cousin Peregrine was so very seldom troubled b