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HERE were four great brown eyes peeping at us through the openings of the fence as we went up the avenue. Two of these were lower down by a bar's width than the others, so of course I knew which were Ella's and which Rosa's, because Ella had told me that she had a little sister.

But only the eyes were the same. Ella was a straight, slender little creature, carrying her head in a queenly way, and looking frankly and earnestly into your eyes. with her own.

Rosa was just as round as anything could be, and be a little girl. Her face was round, her bright berry eyes were round, her cherry pouting mouth was round, and her little round body would have rolled either way, I believe.

In one hand, little round Rosa held her beloved "Ragdolly," as she called her whom she loved better than all her more elegant toys and treasures. This dear object had an extremely soiled and banged appearance, as if she had been used for polishing tables, sweeping carpets, and driving nails; and from what I saw afterward of Ragdolly, and the uses to which she was devoted, I don't doubt that her looks told the truth. Rosa usually carried her as Mother Cat does her kittens, only using her hands instead of her mouth,

as she lifted Dolly by the back of the neck. I don't think Ragdolly minded it much; she looked to me like a doll of experience, who could bear anything.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICK NOR AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

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Ella was nearly two years older than Rosa, so she had put all her dolls in bed in a very motherly way before she came out for her walk.

But I must tell you who these little people were. They had come all the way from their home in the Far South, to spend the summer among the Green Mountains. This happened six years ago, before the poor, angry South had filled up the road to us with blazing towns, and cruel prisons, and bloody battle-fields.

Ella and I had already met once, and had fallen desperately in love with each other as it seemed. So it happened that, as I caught sight of the brown eyes with which I began my story, Ella's pair, at least, twinkled with stars of happy light, as I said, "We 've come for a walk with you."

Now there were the shining eyes, and there were the red lips, and there was a convenient break in the fence, so I naturally stooped to kiss the tempting mouth between the bars; but to my surprise Ella drew back, keeping her eyes fixed on mine, but with a shy glance from the corners at the strange lady. Although I was a little grieved at this sudden coolness in my new little love, I thought best to say nothing about it, as we set off for our walk, Ella taking possession of my hand without my asking.

I wish I could give you the sweet tones of these little girls, and their queer, pretty, Southern accent. They were as well-bred little bodies as I ever saw, but they had caught from the little blacks some odd turns of expression and pronunciation, which sounded strangely to our Northern ears.

"Why, Ella!" said I, “are you really going to walk with me?"

"Yes, Miss Katie, for I love ye! I loved ye just de first time I saw ye!" "Did you, darling? I loved you then, too. But why would n't you kiss me to-night when I came up to you?"

"Don't you know de reason?"

"No indeed! How should I, little kitten?"

"Den I'll tell ye,”. - and here Ella's voice sank into a very soft whisper. "I don't like to kiss ones I love when other peoples are looking at me!" "Why not, darling?"

"O, I 'm afraid they 'll laugh," (lawf she called it,) "and that would spoil it."

Was n't that thoughtful in a little girl only four years old?

All this time, the children's Aunt Hattie and I were walking on together, while round little Rosa rolled on by herself, clutching the throat of her forlorn old Dolly, who had spots added continually to her speckled complexion by the currants and raspberries which Rosa pressed upon her as she went.

Presently, as Rosa, who was our leader, was crossing the railway track, she made a discovery, and cried out, "O Ella! tome here twick!" Ella ran, and soon they both shouted together, "Come! see the killed toad-frogs in de hole!" And sure enough, there were half a dozen little dead toads.

I suppose they had, perhaps, been frightened to death by the terrible steamengine, with its flaming eyes and fiery breath, as it came rushing furiously down the track above their snug little nursery.

The tender-hearted little sisters wanted very much to play they were good

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Samaritans, and try if they could n't rub the poor toad-frogs" " back into noisy little jumpers again; but their legs looked so long and stiff that we thought they could never be drawn up into jumping order, so we left them. Rosa's face really was a little longer than it was broad as she took her last look of the poor things; but she fixed her eyes upon Ragdolly with the most earnest, loving expression, as much as to say, "I am glad it is n't you who are dead!" and immediately rubbed a great red raspberry right across her inky lips to show her how much she loved her. This did not add to Dolly's beauty at all, but I hope she was bright enough to know it was done in love.

When we had found a good resting-place we all seated ourselves where we could see the gold and purple hills far away, upon which the sun shone long after he had hidden himself from us.

But Ella and Rosa could not sit still long. They tried all the big rocks and tree-roots about us for seats, one after the other, but found them either "too hard" or "too soft," as little Silver Hair in the story-book found the chairs of the "Big huge Bear" and the " Middle-sized Bear." So Ella and Rosa hopped around us like little birds.

Rosa tried to put Dolly up into a tree, but gave this plan up after the poor thing had tumbled down to the ground twenty times. She finally poked her head-first into a hole in a stone wall, leaving her forlorn legs sticking out toward us in the most pleading manner.

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Then Rosa pulled a lapful of buttercups, and arranged the little green buds and yellow flowers around the largest blossom of all, with a great ado of baby-mother toil and anxiety.

"Dis is de mudder," said she, as she laid down the wide-awake, grown-up blossom, "and dese yere are de little babies," as she heaped into the broad lap of poor mother buttercup a pile of little green and yellow miniatures of herself. Finally, after playing with them a long while, she put them two by two into little green beds of grass, and, tucking them carefully in, she left them there for the night—and forever, I presume!

As for Miss Dolly, when she was dragged out of her stone prison she was a fearful object to see: there was a big rent (a fresh wound) in the side of her head, through which her woolly brains were coming out, and there was a big dent right where her nose used to be. One likes to see dimples in both cheeks and chin, but a dimpled nose, and particularly a nose all dimple, is very queer. But I am sure Rosa loved Ragdolly better and better for every spot and dent.

As for Ella, I could never tell you all the pretty, graceful things she did and said: and yet it was more her way of doing and saying, than the things themselves. As we walked toward home (after the gold and purple hills began to look dark and sulky because their playfellow the sun had gone to bed) Ella told me in confidence all about her "Paw" and her "Maw," as she called her papa and mamma, and about “Grondmammy," her kind old black nurse, and about her baby-brother. Best of all, she told us that her brothers Fred and Arthur, and her sister Julia, were all coming, as soon as their school was over, to stay with us for the summer. "Sister Julia," said little Ella very decidedly, "is just de puttiest girl in all de world, Miss Katie! even more puttier dan you!" and I felt very warm and happy over my little piece of a compliment, I can tell you,—quite glad to be second to "sister Julia."

We reached home that night with tired feet, but with a great store of what happy dreams are made of, and of plans for many days to be spent on the hills and in the beautiful woods after the older children should come.

But we were not idle while we waited for the Alabama school to close. I used to listen eagerly to the pattering of their feet on the walk, as they learned to come by themselves to see me, and I never could help laughing outright with joy as soon as I caught sight of the jaunty little brown hats which crowned their dear little figures as they came up to the old Parsonage. Their voices made the sweetest music I heard all that summer, although Phoebes, and Robins, and Bobolinks did their best all around me. Rosa's talk was, to be sure, mostly to herself and to her Dolly (who became day by day more dimpled and distressed-looking, and was loved all the more), although she would sometimes speak of pictures which were shown her, or make some funny speech about "my buzzer Walter," who was Ragdolly's only rival. He was a very little "buzzer," only a year old, and it was well for him that Rosa was away from him, if she had no other way of showing her love toward him than toward Dolly, or he would n't have buzzed very much longer.

One day, as Ella and Rosa were in the Parsonage study, looking over some great books which tell all about that very odd country, Japan, they were

greatly delighted with the pictures of rainbow-colored birds and fishes. When Rosa found a bird which had on as many gay colors as his little body would hold, she cried out, "O, dat looks just like my buzzer Walter!" Now of course she did n't mean that her baby-brother had yellow wings, and blue legs, and a green tail, and a red beak, — not at all, — only the bird and “buzzer Walter" were both very beautiful in her eyes. But Ella felt somewhat mortified, and wanted to make an apology for her two-years-old sister. Said she, "Rosa does n't understand about pictures; she does n't know that dey that dey are "—(and here she hesitated, and her eyes grew very big and winked very fast, because she was afraid she could not get the big thought she had started with safely out)—" that dey are the meanings of things what stay on earth: she thinks dey are put in just because dey are pretty!" And after this Ella sat back in her little chair and fanned herself with her morsel of a pocket-handkerchief, very much relieved that her big speech in behalf of Rosa was over.

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But Julia and Fred and Arthur came at last, and then the days were not half long enough for us! These older children proved to be as lovely in their way as were Ella and Rosa in theirs. This was the very best-trained family of five children that I ever saw, and Aunt Hattie, under whose care they were, had an easy task.

O, how we went gypsying that beautiful summer! There were never such beautiful days before, except those which stirred Mr. Lowell's heart to the beautiful June song in "Sir Launfal":

"Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it.
We are happy now because God so wills it!"

So we found it. Every morning it was our custom to set forth for some pleasant spot which we had chosen the day before, and we were sure not to get home again till the dinner was cold!

The Parsonage was our trysting-place. Ella and Rosa were sure to come first, too impatient to wait for the older ones. Ella usually brought an old reading-book tucked under her arm, and held very fast. This was almost as great a pet with her as was Ragdolly with Rosa, and it was nearly as much battered. From it Ella used to read out in a very comical way. It really seemed to me, as I heard her, that I should not like to write poetry for Ella to read!

She would begin by saying, "Shall I read ye something from dis yere

book?"

"O, yes! I would like you to read very much."

"Well, I will: 'The Dying Girl.'”

"No, Ella, don't read that, please, this bright morning. I would rather hear something else."

"But I must read dis, because you don't want it! It will do you good!" "Very well, read on."

"The dream is past!' You don't know what dat means!"

"No. Do you?"

"No, of tourse not; he does n't, either. Why, it's poetry!"

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