y had never had any fascination for her.

She thrust the parcel into the child's hands.

"They are for you," she said.

Little Agnes took the parcel, but not in her usual frank, enthusiastic,
and open delight, but timidly.

"They're not--they're not toads?" she said.

"Toads!" cried Irene; and then she colored crimson. "Don't take them
unless you want them," she said; and she snatched the parcel away from
the child.

Little Agnes burst out crying.

"Irene, what do you mean?--Surely, Agnes, you are not silly!" exclaimed
Rosamund. "See, let me open the parcel."

"I don't want her to have it unless she really wishes for it," said
Irene. "I wouldn't force my gifts on any one, not even little Agnes."
But there was an imploring note in her voice.

Little Agnes, however, was still full of the horrors with which she had
been crammed. Rosamund went on one knee and opened the ungainly parcel.
It contained a Noah's Ark, a box of bricks, some soldiers (the very best
of their kind), and other toys of the sort that would ravish children.
At another moment little Agnes would have been all delight, but now she
seemed to see--behind the marching soldiers, and the fascinating bricks
which could raise such marvelous architectural edifices, and the Noah's
Ark with its quaint animals--toads and lizards and newts, and wasps and
bees. Oh, why was she so frightened, she who had never really been
frightened before? And she did love Irene. She looked up into her face
now with piteous terror, and yet a piteous love mingling in her eyes.

"I will take them; they are beautiful," she said; and she clasped them
in her arms. Then she put her face up for Irene to kiss, and then she
went away staggering under the weight of her new treasures.

Irene turned to Rosamund.

"What is the matter?" she said. "Something has happened to the child.
She was so jolly when we went out--so like her dearest, sweetest
self--and now she is quite altered. What can have happened?"

"I can't tell," said Rosamund. "You had better take no notice, Irene."

Irene could scarcely promise to do that, and she was sulky and disturbed
during the rest of the evening; and although little Agnes sat in her
usual place at supper, she hardly spoke to her.

After supper Agnes flew up to Miss Frost and whispered something in her
ear.

"May I--may I--sleep in your bed to-night? I want to," she said.

"Certainly," replied Miss Frost, intensely gratified. "But what will
Ire