“ CARROTS.”

After that day not many passed without

my seeing them and talking to them, and mak-

ing Gip show off his tricks. Sometimes our
meetings were at the window, sometimes on
the road; once or twice, when there came
some unusually fine, mild days, mamma let me
sit out on the shore, and I taught the trots.
to dig a hole for Gip and bury him in the sand,
all but his bright eyes and funny black nose;
that was a beautiful game! I never found out
exactly where my friends lived: it was in one
of the side streets leading on to the Esplanade ;
that was all I knew. -I never knew, as I said,
if they were boys or girls, or perhaps one of
each. Mamma wanted one day to ask Bessie,
but I wouldn’t let her. They were just my two.
little trots; that was all I wanted to know.

“It would spoil them to fancy them grow-
ing up into great boys or girls,” I said. «I
want them to be always trots— nothing else.”

And as Bessie called them simply Doll and
Dot, without any “master” or “miss,” I was.

able to keep my fancy.