And Bébée danced with the child, and the silver gleamed and sparkled, and all the people came running out to see, and the milk carts were half an hour late for town, and the hens cackled loud unfed, and the men even stopped on their way to the fields, and paused with their scythes on their shoulders, to stare at the splendid gift.

She was a little poet at heart, and should not have cared for such vanities; but when one is only sixteen, and has only a rough woolen frock, and sits in the market place or the lace room, with other girls around, how should one be altogether indifferent to a broad, embossed, beautiful shield of silver that sparkled with each step one took?

A quarter of an hour idle thus was all, however, that Bébée or her friends could spare at five o'clock on a summer morning, when the city was waiting for its eggs, its honey, its flowers, its cream, and its butter, and Tambour was shaking his leather harness in impatience to be off with his milk cans.

So Bébée, all holiday though it was, and heroine though she felt herself, ran indoors, put up her cakes and cherries, cut her two basketsful out of the garden, locked her hut, and went on her quick and happy little feet along the grassy paths toward the city.

LOUISE DE LA RAMÉ.

THE MAKING OF THE MUSIC.

"Make us a song, then, mother dear!

Sweet to think of, and sweet to sing," Said the little daughter and the little son; Their lips were gay, and their eyes were clear"And let the song be an easy one,

Sweet to think of, and sweet to sing."

"Sweet to think of, and sweet to hear?
How shall I make it, children dear?
The night is falling, the winds are rough;
What will you give me to make it of?"

"No, mother dear, the winds are soft,
And the sky is blue and clear aloft,
And oh! we can give you things enough

To make the beautiful music of.

"We will give you the morning and afternoon,

We will give you the sun, and the full white moon; You shall have all our prettiest toys,

And fields and flowers, and girls and boys.

"We will give you a bird, and a ship at sea,
And a golden cloud, and an almond tree,
A picture gay, a river that runs,
A chime of bells, and hot cross-buns.

"You may have roses, and rubies rare,
And silks and satins beyond compare,

A scepter and crown, a queen, a king,
And beautiful dreams, and everything!
We will give you all that we think or know
The song will be sweet if you make it so."

Then the mother smiled as she began
To make the music, and sweet it ran,

And easy enough for a strain or two;

And the children said, "Mother, the song will do!"

But soon the melody ran less clear;

There came a pause, and a wandering tear,
And a thought that went back many a year;
And the children fancied the music long,
And asked, "What have you put into the song
That we did not tell you, mother dear?"

The Eskimo children have vacation all the time. One day when I was watching them at play, the thought came into my mind, "What would these poor

little things think if they could see all the toys and games that our children have? What would they say to a Christmas tree all lighted?"

I was sorry, at first, that I thought of this, for Christmas was a sore subject to me. Oh, I did try to keep myself from thinking about Christmas!

So, when pictures came up before me,- for instance, the picture of my little sister and brothers taking down their stockings and pulling the things out, or of mother and all of them round the dinner table, or of the turkey and the plum pudding, I shut my eyes tight, and shook my head as fast as I could. "Go 'way! Go 'way!" I said. "Joe doesn't want you!"

But my thoughts would keep running that way in spite of me. Santa Claus sent them, I guess, for the sake of the poor Eskimo children, that never heard even of hanging up stockings! And if he did, it must have been he that put the ridiculous notion into my head of getting up a Christmas tree for Kapaniah, Myugna, and the rest. I say ridiculous, because there wasn't a tree in the land, nor a candle, nor a shop, nor a toy; nor even a bit of twine, supposing I had presents, to tie them on with.

But just because the thing seemed impossible, I made up my mind to set about it. From Oglik, and from these others, I had picked up Eskimo enough to talk a little; so that the first thing I did was to tell