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Rh l86S.]

THE FORGET-4' E-1VOT

A CIIRISTMAS STOR T.

39

possessed many of the advantages, as I were immediately made. Ashes were well as the peculiarities, to be seen in ‘ heaped on the mouldering ﬁres, and the the “chateau-roofed” mansions of the logs were drawn apart, to prevent waste. The red double shutters had long since present day. The inspection now being closed, been closed over the windows, and now Samuel Carpenter departed for his own the iron bars were placed across the front home laden with kind messages to his and rear doors, the keys turned in the wife, Mistress Hannah Carpenter, whom huge locks, and the household was at rest. Outside, also, quietness reigned. The a temporary illness had prevented ac frozen earth was covered with a thick companying him to the Penns. As soon as the guest was fairly gone, mantle of snow, and the weird light of a bell was rung, and the servants and the moon crept in and out among the salient and re-entering angles of the family assembled in the Governor’s par lor to listen to the reading of the Bible, quaint building, making it appear, from which was followed by the solemn, silent turret to foundation-stone, more like some pause which always accompanies that castellated fortress with its curtains and service in the house of Friends. This bastions, than the really peaceful resi being ended, preparations for retirement dence of an unwarlike Quaker.

. THE FORGET-ME-NOT: A CHRISTMAS STORY?“ N a moss-covered stone, by the bank of a fresh meadow brook, sat two tiny sprites looking down into the waters that shimmered and glanced and rippled at their feet. The one was a comical-looking little man, broad-shoul dered and rather short-necked, and of a stooping form that ill-natured people

might have called humpbacked.

His

little thin legs, which he drew up cau tiously_for he feared the water that wantonly danced up toward him—gave him a very singular appearance. His dress was brown, and by no means elegant. Upon his head he wore a brown leathern hood or cap slouched oddly over his pale, homely, but thorough ly good-natured countenance. The other ﬁgure was that of a lovely, slender female Elf. Her hair fell in curls on her shoul ders and arms: her sweet but somewhat mischievous face was reﬂected on the shining water in which played her naked feet, throwing up from time to time a few drops into the face of her companion, when he chanced to look another way. ' Tmnslatecl from the German of Gcsrnv zu Pun.rrz.

She wore a dress of ﬂower petals, and had set an Auricula blossom on her clustering curls by way of hat. “ Ah, Brownie,” said the willful little beauty, “ art thou still afraid of water?” “ Oh, I have shoes on,” he replied.

This was not strictly a falsehood, but it was not the reason of his avoidance of the water. “ But,” continued he, in order to turn the conversation, “ do not call

me Brownie. That comprehensive, wide spreading family name sounds so formal. Call me Kiippchen, or Little-hood, as people do when they love me.”

“ Very well,” said the Elf, for such indeed was his companion; “ and thou must call me Lilli. So now we are friends.” And friends they were, how ever dissimilar they might be. Perhaps this very difference bound them the more closely together. At ﬁrst, theirs had been but a bathing-place acquaintance; ripen

ing into a bathing-place friendship, but this, at last, had become a real and sincere

aﬁ‘ection, that had lasted long, although they never saw each other but during the bathing season, and never wrote letters in the intervals of separation. But per