still as mice, eying the stranger with looks in which fear and admiration were probably curiously blended, while Aunt Polly, taking the white flag from her color-bearer, advanced with a firm front to meet the foe who now, reinforced by several men, stood beside the way, evidently wondering what this queer parade was about.

'Sir!' and Aunt Polly's voice trembled perceptibly but she waved the white flag manfully under his very nose, 'sir, I demand a safe passage for these innocent children to their different homes.'

The officer stared, and his mouth twitched mischievously as if he had hard work to keep from laughing outright. But he was a gentleman; and when he spoke, he spoke like one:

'My good woman,' he said kindly, 'these children are nothing to me. If you wish permission for them to go to their own homes you are welcome to it, though in what way the matter concerns me I must confess I am at a loss to imagine.'

Then, and not till then, Aunt Polly broke down and sobbed aloud:

'Run, children,' she cried as soon as she could speak; 'go home just as fast as you can scud; an' tell your folks,' she added with a gust of gratitude, 'that there's worse folks in the world than an Englishman.'

You may be sure that we waited for no further urging; and as we flew, rather than ran, in the direction of our different homes, I heard the irrepressible burst of laughter with which the officer and his men received the grateful spinster's compliment which, to the day of her death, she loved to repeat whenever she told the thrilling story of her adventure with the English officer, 'when Hampden was took by the British in 1814;' always concluding with this candid admission:

'An' really, now, if he'd 'a' been anybody but an Englishman, an' an inimy, I should 'a' said that I never sot eyes on a better-built, more mannerly man, in all my born days.' Heigho! Baby Mine! Now where are you creeping, With such a rapid pace across the nursery floor? Only out to Mamma who'll give you royal greeting, With coddling and petting and kisses galore. 

CORINNE'S MUSICALE. Inside of me says I am naughty, But truly, I know I am not; For if Brother Joe could see me Right in this very same spot, He'd let me do just what I'm doing, I'm very sure; that is, perhaps. Oh dear! however do big folks Hold this thing straight in their laps? It slips, an' it slips, an' it slips, You naughty old Banjo, oh dear! Is he 

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