cried—for mamma he soon saw it was—and his voice woke David too, "it is you then—you who are the good fairy! It is a shame for you to have such trouble for us. Oh, mamma, dear, I am ashamed," and out of bed sprang Leonard and David, and set to work with a will to help their mother, in what certainly should not have been left for her to do.

"We will never be so untidy again, mamma, never," said both boys.

"And it will save yourselves and other people a great deal of discomfort, of worse than discomfort, indeed," she replied.

"But, mamma, untidiness isn't such a very bad fault—not like telling falsehoods, or bullying, or anything like that?"

"It is a fault that leads to bad faults," said his mother gravely, "to waste of time and money—two of our 'talents'—to loss of temper, and undeserved blame of others, very often. It makes life ugly and ungraceful, and it puts the burden of our own duty on others. For some one must be tidy, or what would become of the world? And for my part I can never think but what untidiness in outside things too often ends in untidiness of mind and thought."[Pg 35]

[Pg 35]

THE GOBLIN FACE.

WHEN I was a very little girl, I spent a good deal of my life in a large old-fashioned house in a very out-of-the-way part of[Pg 36] Scotland. It was not really our home, but it almost seemed so, for we used to go there as soon as the fine mild weather set in, and stay till the shortening days and the first frosts told of winter's approach. It was the home of our uncle—my mother's only brother—and as he had never married, and she was many years younger than he, she seemed to him more like his daughter than his sister, and he was never so happy as when he had her and all us children to brighten up his rather gloomy old house. Gloomy it might be in appearance, but in nothing else, for my uncle was the kindest of men, and he and all his old servants used to receive us with a welcome that would have made the grimmest of abodes seem sunshiny and cheerful. I could tell dozens—nay, scores of stories of our child-life in the old castle—of our games in the house, and out of doors, of the cottagers with all of whom we were on most intimate terms, of all sorts of adventures that befel us, but just now, I mean only to relate one very short, and perhaps not very interesting, story, because I think it may be of use to some children who may read it.

W

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