And out in the garden, too,

Are violets white and blue;

The heralds of Spring have come, and so
The Summer will soon be here, I know!

LITTLE TOM, THE CHIMNEY-SWEEP.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

CHARLES KINGSLEY (1819-1875) was a novelist, poet, theologian, and active philanthropist. He was born in Devonshire, England, and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep whose name was Tom. He lived in a great town in the North Country, where there were plenty of chimneys to sweep, and plenty of money for Tom to earn and for Grimes, his master, to spend.

Tom could not read nor write and did not care to do either; and he never washed himself, for there was no water in the Court where he lived.

One day a dapper little groom rode into the Court where Tom lived. Tom was hiding behind a wall to throw a half brick at the groom's horse, as is the custom of that country when they welcome strangers; but the groom saw Tom and called to him to ask where Mr. Grimes, the chimney-sweep, lived. Tom was a good man of business, and always civil to customers, so he put the half brick down quietly behind the wall, and proceeded to take orders.

The groom told him that Mr. Grimes was to come up

the next morning to Sir John Harthove's, as his chimney needed sweeping.

The next morning Tom and his master arose very early and started out. Grimes rode the donkey in front, and Tom and the brushes walked behind. Thus they journeyed on until they arrived at Harthove House.

Tom and his master did not go in through the great iron gates, as if they had been dukes or bishops, but round the back way, and a very long way it was; and through a little back door, which the ash boy opened to let them in; and then in a passage the housekeeper met them, in such a flowered-chintz dressing-gown that Tom mistook her for my lady herself. She gave Grimes solemn orders about, "You will take care of this and take care of that," as if he, and not Tom, were going up the chimneys.

Grimes listened, and said every now and then, under his voice; "You'll mind that, you little beggar!" And Tom did mind, at least all he could. Then the housekeeper turned them into a grand room, all covered up with sheets of brown paper, and bade them begin. After a whimper or two and a kick from his master, into the grate went Tom and up the chimney, while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the furniture.

How many chimneys he swept I cannot say, but he swept so many that he became quite tired, and puzzled, too, for they were not like the town flues to which he was used, but such as one might find in old country houses, large and crooked chimneys which had been altered again and again until they ran into one another.

Tom lost his way in them; not that he cared much for that, even if he were in pitchy darkness, for he was as much at home in a chimney as a mole is under ground. At last, coming down, as he thought the right chimney, he came down the wrong one, and found himself standing on the hearth rug in a room the like of which he had never seen before.

Tom had never been in gentle folks' rooms but when the carpets were all up and the curtains down and the furniture huddled together under a cloth and the pictures covered with aprons and dusters. He had often wondered what the rooms were like when they were all ready for the quality to sit in. Now he saw, and he thought the sight very pretty.

The room was all dressed in white; white window curtains, white bed-curtains, white furniture, and white walls, with just a few lines of pink here and there. The carpet was all over gay little flowers, and the walls were hung with pictures in gilt frames, which amused Tom very much.

There were pictures of ladies and gentlemen, and pictures of horses and dogs. The horses he liked; but the dogs he did not care for much, because there were no bulldogs among them, not even a terrier.

The two pictures that took his fancy most were, one, a man in long garments, with little children and their mothers around him. He was laying his hands on the children's heads. That was a very pretty picture, Tom thought, to hang in a lady's room; for he could see it was a lady's room by the dresses which lay about. The other picture was that

of a man nailed to a cross. This surprised Tom much. He fancied he had seen something like it in a shop window. Why was it there? "Poor man,” thought Tom, “and he looks so quiet and kind. Why should the lady have such a sad picture as that in her room? Perhaps it was some relation of hers who had been murdered by the savages in foreign parts, and she kept it there for a remembrance." Tom felt sad and thrilled with awe, but he turned to look at something else.

The next thing he saw puzzled him also. It was a wash stand with pitchers and basins, and soap and brushes, and towels and a large bath full of clean water.

'What a heap of things all for washing! She must be a very dirty lady," thought Tom, "to need so much scrubbing as all that. How clever she must be to put the dirt out of sight, for I don't see a single speck about the room, not even on the towels." Then looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady and held his breath in surprise.

Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pillow, lay the most beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen. Here cheeks were almost as white as the pillow, and her hair was like threads of gold spread all about over the bed. She might have been as old as Tom, or perhaps a year or two older; but Tom did not think of that. He thought only of her delicate skin and golden hair, and wondered whether she was a real live person, or one of the wax dolls he had seen in the shops. He saw her breathe and then made up his mind that she was, indeed, alive,

and stood staring at her, as if she had been an angel out of heaven.

"No; she cannot be dirty. She never could have been dirty," thought Tom to himself, and then he thought: "Are all people like that when they are washed?" He then looked at his own wrist and tried to rub the soot off, and wondered if it ever would come off. "Certainly I would look much prettier if I were washed and if I grew at all like her."

Looking around, Tom suddenly saw standing close to him, a little, ugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes and grinning white teeth. He turned on it angrily. What did such a black, dirty boy want in that sweet young lady's room? Behold, it was himself, reflected in a great mirror the like of which Tom had never seen before..

For the first time in his life, Tom found out that he was really dirty. He burst into tears with shame and anger, and tried to sneak up the chimney again and hide. He, by accident, upset the fender and threw the andirons down, with a noise as of ten thousand tin kettles tied to ten thousand dogs' tails.

Up jumped the little white lady in her bed; and, seeing Tom, she screamed as shrill as any peacock. In rushed a stout old nurse from the next room, and when she saw Tom she made up her mind that he had come to rob, plunder, destroy, and burn. She dashed at him as he lay over the fender, and caught him by the jacket.

She did not hold him. Tom would have been ashamed to even face his friends if he had been stupid enough to be