THE NORTHIOOFT LILIES.

 felt she had gained her point. Dolls to begin with,"
 she said.
 "'But you hate dressing dolls, Effie !"
 "Well, but you don't, and little Lottie would knit
 some comforters, I am sure, and the boys might do
 something in the holidays; and---"
 Oh, I know," interrupted Gertrude. Nurse
 said yesterday she dreaded turning out the play
 cupboard in the nursery, and she made me so cross,
 she told Betsy she should burn all the old pictures in
 it. You know there are no end of them, and I was
 cross, and told her she shouldn't (as if that would do
 any good either !) But now that's capital! You love
 messing about with paste, and we can get some un-
 bleached calico and make some scrap-books, and I'll
 paint some of the pictures. There's the Prince of
 Wales's wedding for one, I know. Oh, that will be
 first-rate Thank you, dear Effie, you are the very
 dearest old girl! I'll run off this very minute, and
 the tiresome old scales may take care of themselves,"
 and giving her sister a warm hug, off she rushed.
 To tell the truth, Effie did not much relish being
told she loved messing about with paste," because
she knew she pasted, as she did everything else, very
neatly; but she was really glad to have brought a
smile into Gertrude's face again, and was quite de-
lighted with her conquest, for she knew very well if
her little impulsive sister did once undertake a thing
she would go through with it; and so, the first diffi-
culty being surmounted, she would not trouble about
the rest.
 Gertrude rushed upstairs, right to the top of the
house, into the nursery, which looked out over an old
smoke-dried elm-tree, in whose branches the little
dingy sparrows hopped and twittered, and beyond