“Now, just you look here, Master Ned.”

But Ned didn’t stop to look; for, after the restive kick at the chair, he had broken into a canter, dashed down the garden and through the gate into the meadow, across which he now galloped straight for the new haystack, for only a week before that meadow had been forbidden ground and full of long, waving, flowery strands.

The grasshoppers darted right and left from the brown patches where the scythes had left their marks; the butterflies fled in their butterfly fashion.

So did a party of newly-fledged sparrowkins, and, still playing the pony, Ned kept on, drawing his sister’s attention to the various objects, as he made for the long row of Lombardy poplars which grew so tall and straight close to the deep river-side, and gave the name “Lombardy” to the charming little home.

But it was all in vain; nothing would pacify the sobbing child, not even the long red-and-yellow monkey barge gliding along the river, steered by a woman in a print hood, and drawn by a drowsy-looking grey horse at the end of a long tow-rope, bearing a whistling boy seated sidewise on his back and a dishcover-like pail hanging from his collar.

“Oh, I say, don’t cry, Tizzy,” protested Ned, at last, as he felt the hot tears trickling inside his white collar.

“I can’t help it, Teddy,” she sobbed. “I did so want to see the kite fly!”

“Never mind, pussy,” said her brother; “I’ll get the butterfly-net.”

“No, no,” she sobbed; “please don’t.”

“The rod and line, then, and you shall fish. I’ll put on the worms.”

“No, no, I don’t want to,” she said, with more tears. “Put me down, please; you do joggle me so. You’ll be going back to school soon, and, now the grass is cut, I did so wa–wa–want to see the kite fly!”

“So did I,” said the boy ruefully. “But don’t cry, Tiz dear. Tell me what to do. It makes me so miserable to see you cry.”

“Does it, Teddy?” she said, looking up wistfully in her brother’s face, and then kissing him. “There, then: I won’t cry any more.”

She had hardly spoken when the sunshine returned to her pretty little face, for, though she did not 

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