Ww. V.

as this an only child is at a disadvantage.
Even M’rao, her furry playmate, might have
served as a bewitched brother, but after
many months of somnolent forbearance M’rao
ventured into the great world beyond our
limes, and returned no more.

Flower of the quince,
Puss once kissed Babs, and ever since
She thinks he mzzs¢ be an enchanted prince.

In a moment she was off again, an angel,
flying about the garden and in and out of the
house in the performance of helpful offices
for some one; or, perchance, a fairy, for her
heaven is a vague and strangely-peopled
region. Long ago she told me that the
moon was “put up” by a black man—a
saying which puzzled me until I came to
understand that this negro divinity could
only have been the “divine Dark” of the
old Greek poet. Of course she says her
brief, simple prayers ; but how can one con-
vey to a child’s mind any but the most
provisional and elemental conceptions of the
Invisible? Once I was telling her the story
of a wicked king, who put his trust in a fort

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