"Hush, my love, hush! and go to sleep, and we will talk this matter over when you are able to bear it."
"Goody gracious, mamma!"
"There she goes again!" cried the father; "now we shall have another fit!"
"Hush, hush, my love! you must go to sleep, now, and not talk any more."
"Well, kiss me, mamma, and let me have your hand to go to sleep with, and I'll try."
Her mother kissed the dear little thing, and took her hand in hers, and laid her cheek upon the pillow, and, in less than five minutes, she was sound asleep, and breathing as she hadn't breathed before, since she had been fished out of the water, nearly three weeks back, on her way to Fairy-land.
PICKINGS AND STEALINGS.
Troublesome comforts are they at best, these Little Plagues; and yet, how on earth should we get along without them? Mysterious and wonderful in their perturbations and irregularities, they are continually amazing the wisest by their questionings, and startling whole neighborhoods with their strange outbreaks of inner life, as you may see by what follows. For a long while—many years, indeed—I have been in the habit of minuting down the stories that have come in my way about the little folks—the seedling cherubim—out of which, as the stars are smelted, the angels of God, who see His face forever, are to be recast and refashioned for the skies. Grains of gold are they, often gathered from street sweepings and rubbish; diamond-sparks which the great multitude, in their headlong hurry, overlook, but infinitely precious to the Philanthropist and the Philosopher. For example:—
No. 1. And this I had from the late John Pierpont, who related it of a grandchild, yet living, I hope.