"Well, follow me quickly, and you can get up on the haystack and sleep on the top."

Now, this haystack was a round one, and stood at this season alone in its glory in the haggard; part of it had been taken down that day, and the remainder stood almost level with a stone wall which ran all round the Rectory farmstead and grounds, joining both the large garden and the round one where the rabbits lived, a regular Roman highway for a well-balanced cat to travel by, as Belinda often did in search of birds or other game.

"You must be smart and keep your eyes open," she said, as he followed her across the yard to the piggeries, where they scrambled up a low wall to the roof. Then they crept along on the boundary wall, to the fowl-house. The geese and ducks were all just come in, and were making a dreadful noise, telling each other all had happened since morning, and how pleased they were to be in again. Only for his present fix Sysyphus would have been charmed to know where

the fowls were to be got; but now, in the fresh venture of keeping himself safe on the top of a narrow wall so far from firm ground, his head was so dizzy and his feelings so upset, he could give no thought to anything but ". "when he would get to the end of this dreadful journey."

"You must take a flying leap from this to that," nodding at the haystack, said Belinda. "Cover yourself well up till morning, and I'll come for you early." (To be continued.)

shrank from him in something like disgust. "Frightful, of course, frightful; very humiliating!" he exclaimed, as he began to make his dinner of the nettle to which he had crawled. "Patience!" said the nettle; "you won't always be a woolly-bear."

A little time, and the woolly-bear became a pupa, that is, an insect mummy.

"Is this change for the better? am I any nearer beauty now?" he asked despairingly of the nettle. "Surely I

was better off when I could at least show life and move about, than I am in this living tomb!"

"Patience; when things come to the worst they mend," said the nettle. "You won't always be a mummy."

One morning the sun shone on the glorious wings of the tiger-moth, as it balanced itself on the hedge, trembling with delight.

"Ah," cried the nettle, "I told you so. The training wasn't pleasant, but see what has come of it!"

PUNKIE;

OR,

THE LITTLE DOG THAT DIDN'T

LIKE HIS PORTRAIT TAKEN.

UNKIE is a very pretty little Skye terrier, the pet of his mistress and everybody who knows him. Certainly there are some severe persons who solemnly aver that Punkie is spoiled; maybe he is, but he differs from spoiled children, for he is quiet, good-tempered, and well-behaved. Punkie loves his mistress dearly, but I think he loves his own way just a trifle better, and he generally manifests the most dogged obstinacy in his efforts to secure it; and having got it, he hangs out the tip of his little red tongue, and wags his brushy tail, and looks simply captivating.

One morning his mistress came tripping downstairs into the hall with her outdoor clothes on. Up jumped Punkie from his nap on the breakfast-room hearthrug, and trotted out to bear her company.

But she said, "No, Punkie, not to-day. I am so sorry, poor little fellow ! it's no use frisking nor begging, for they don't like dogs there."

Punkie had no idea where there was; he only knew that he meant to go, so he laid his small woolly person down close to the street door, and whined.

"Oh, Punkie, don't hinder me !" sighed his mistress. "Get up, and go to bed, sir, this minute," said she, stamping her foot, and pretending to be cross.

He knew she wasn't angry, and he thought she would soon relent, but instead of this she picked him up as if he were but a feather, and laid him down in the middle of a lovely red sofa pillow, where almost any dog but Punkie would have rested content. He howled softly when he heard the street door closed, leaped down, and ran about in a wild frenzy. Then a happy thought occurred to him. He would try to get out by the back door. Fortune favoured him in this attempt, and after a race across two gardens and a squeeze through a hedge, Punkie found himself in the street a free, unfettered dog. He galloped on his little short legs and sniffed with his cold black nose, and wagged his tail in a self-satisfied way, as much as to say

"What a clever creature I am! I am on the right track. I go to church, I go shopping, I make calls, I go everywherewhy shouldn't I go there?"

Punkie got there. He found it a spacious place, full of statuary, and casts, and people, and paints, and drawingboards, and easels. None of these artistic surroundings had any power over Punkie's mind, as he went "patter, patter," in and out of the lofty rooms, and got under people's feet, and was trodden on for his pains; yes, in and out, upstairs and down, Punkie went looking for his mistress. his joy when at last he discovered her was worth all the smarting of his pinched toes, and all the weary aching of his short legs. She reproached him for his disobedience, but it was so lovingly, and her admonishing pat was as delightful as a caress to faithful, persevering Punkie.

But

Somebody with a voice of authority, and a bushy beard and moustache, said, just as Punkie was feeling so secure in his bliss"He must go out. We can't allow dogs to interfere with the students' work."

"I told you so, you naughty Punkie!" cried his mistress, as she took him in her arms and hid her flushed face in his silky coat.

"Oh, what a splendid little fellow!" exclaimed a lady. And turning to the art-master, she said, "Do let us make a sketch of him in crayons or water colours!"

He acceded to this proposal, and a cushion having been hunted up, it was laid on a chair, and there Mr. Punkie was obliged to lie while the students and the gentleman with the fierce beard and moustache stared at him, and drew his

portrait. He didn't like this state of things at all, but he only growled, and barked, and whimpered in an undertone, out of affection for his mistress. They drew some excellent portraits of him, but that was no consolation to Punkie, who had no taste for pictures of any kind. Punkie had had enough of it.

When the morning class was over, he trotted home close to his mistress's heels, with his tail down, saying to himself, "I'll never go there again unless mistress particularly wishes it."

EMILY JANE MOORE.