matter what colour one's eyes are as what one sees with them. There is a bright side to everything, if people only knew it, and the best eyes are those which are able always to see this best side.'

'I must say, Friend Pussy,' said Mother Fern, 'that you are a most sensibly spoken bush, for a bush of your age. You always did seem to me to have a most remarkable faculty in that line; for I have remarked how you seize on the first ray of sunshine, and get your pussies out before any of us dare make a movement. Many a time I have said, 'Well, I guess Miss Pussy Willow 'll find herself mistaken in the weather this year;' but, taking one year with another, I think you have gained time by being always on hand, and believing in the pleasant weather.'

'Well,' said Pussy, if I should hang back with my buds as our old Father Elm-tree does, I should miss a deal of pleasure, and people would miss a deal of pleasure from me. The

children, dear souls! I'm always in a hurry to get out in the spring because it pleases them. 'O, here's Pussy Willow come back!' they cry when they see me. 'Now the winter is over!' And no matter if there is a little dash of sleet or snow or frost after that, I stand it with a good heart, because I know it is summer that is coming, and not winter, and that things are certain to grow better, and not worse. I'm not handsome, I know; I'm not elegant; nobody thinks much of me; and my only good points are my cheerfulness and my faith in good things to come; so these are the gifts I bring to my little god-child.'

With that, Pussy Willow stooped and rubbed her downy cheek over the little downy cheek of the baby, and the tiny face smiled in its sleep as if it knew that something good was being done for it. But just then Nurse Toothacre, who had been snoring very regularly for some time, gave such a loud and sudden snort

that it waked her up, and she sat bolt upright in bed. 'Was that a dog barking?' she exclaimed. I thought I heard a dog.'

Whisk! went all the little fairies up the ladder of moonshine; but Pussy Willow laughed softly as she softly patted her velvet tip against the window, and said, 'Good night, Dearie.'

II.

ELL!' said the old nurse, 'who would 'a' thought that 'ere baby would 'a' slept so?-None o' your

W

worry-cats, she ain't.'

You will observe from this speech that good Nurse Toothacre had not had early advantages in forming her style of conversation; in consequence of which her manner of expressing herself was not a thing to be recommended as a model for you young folks. Well, now my dear young folks who have read the first chapter will agree that our baby has made a good beginning in life, and that the three fairies, Mother Fern, and the pretty Miss Hepatica, and Pussy Wil

low, have endowed her with rare gifts, such as beautiful blue eyes, a good healthy constitution, and the gift of seeing the bright side of everything.

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This last gift was the greatest of all, as you will see if you think a little, because it is quite plain that it is not so much what people have that makes them happy, as what they think and feel about what they have. If one little girl has an old hat of her sister's pressed over, and trimmed with some of her sister's last year's flowers, and likes it, and is delighted with it, she is really far better off than another little girl whose mother has bought for her three new hats trimmed each with different fine things, and none of which suit her, so that she declares she hasn't a thing she can wear.

Little Pussy had great need to be gifted with this happy disposition, for she was not a rich man's daughter. Her father was a hard-working farmer, who owed about five hundred dollars