e of your affectionate friend,

"AUNT FANNY'S" DAUGHTER.

THE STORY OF THE SOCKS.

BY AUNT FANNY.

"OH dear! what _shall_ I do?" cried George, fretfully, one rainy
afternoon. "Mamma, do tell me what to do."

"And I'm _so_ tired!" echoed Helen, who was lazily playing with a kitten
in her lap. "I don't see why it should rain on a Friday afternoon, when
we have no lessons to learn. We can't go out, and no one can come to see
us. It's too bad, there!"

"Helen, do _you_ know better than _God_?" asked her mother, speaking
very gravely. "You forget that He sends the rain."

"I suppose I was thoughtless, mamma," answered the child; "I did not
mean to be wicked, but, dear me, the time passes _so_ slowly, with
nothing to do."

"Have you and George read all your books?"

"Oh yes! two or three times over," they both answered; "and oh, mamma,"
continued Helen, "if the one who wrote 'Two Little Heaps,' or the
'Rollo' book writer, or the author of 'The Little White Angel,' would
only write some more books, I, for one, would not care how hard it
rained. If I was grown up and rich, I wouldn't mind giving a dollar a
letter for those stories."

"Nor I," shouted George in an animated tone, quite different from the
discontented whine he had favored his mother with a few moments before;
"the best thing is to have them read aloud to you; that makes you
understand all about it so much better. I say, mamma, couldn't you write
a letter to one of those delightful people and beg them to hurry up with
more stories, especially some about bad children;--not exactly wicked,
you know, but full of mischief. _Then I am sure that they are all true._
Only wait till I'm a man! I'll just write the history of some jolly
fellows I know who are always getting into scrapes, but haven't a scrap
of meanness about them. That's the kind of book I like! I'll write
dozens of them, and give them to all the Sunday school libraries."

His mother smiled at this speech, and then said quietly, "I know a
gentleman who likes the story of 'The Little White Angel,' as much as
you do, and he has written a letter to request the author to write six
books for him."

"Six! hurrah!" shouted George, "how glad I am!" and he skipped up to
Helen, caught her by the hands, and the two danced round the room,
upsetting a chair, till Helen, catching her foot in the skirt of her
mother's dress, they both tumbled down on the carp