When you see that this book is dedicated to you, I hope your bright eyes will sparkle with pleasure; but I am afraid your pretty curly heads will hardly retain a recollection of a little personage who once lived close to your beautiful home on Staten Island. She remembers you, however, and sends you this soldier story with her very best love—the love she bears in her inmost heart for God and little children. And now she asks you to hunt in every corner of those same precious little heads for a kindly remembrance of your affectionate friend,
"AUNT FANNY'S" DAUGHTER.
THE STORY OF THE SOCKS.
BY AUNT FANNY.
"Oh dear! what shall I do?" cried George, fretfully, one rainy afternoon. "Mamma, do tell me what to do."
"And I'm so tired!" echoed Helen, who was lazily playing with a kitten in her lap. "I don't see why it should rain on a Friday afternoon, when we have no lessons to learn. We can't go out, and no one can come to see us. It's too bad, there!"
"Helen, do you know better than God?" asked her mother, speaking very gravely. "You forget that He sends the rain."
"I suppose I was thoughtless, mamma," answered the child; "I did not mean to be wicked, but, dear me, the time passes so slowly, with nothing to do."