THE BABY-HOUSE.
Are there any of you, my young friends, so young or so ignorant as to believe that, if you might go to the beautiful toy shops, and had but money enough to buy just what toys you fancy, you should be quite happy?
You have heard of Napoleon, the great Emperor of France, and perhaps you have heard of his wife, the lovely Empress Josephine. She had a daughter, Hortense, who was married to the King of Holland, Napoleon’s brother. The Queen of Holland had children, dearly beloved by their grandmother Josephine. One year, as the Christmas holidays approached, she sent for those artisans in Paris who manufacture toys, and ordered toys to be made expressly for her grandchildren, more beautiful and more costly than any that were to be bought. Her commands were obeyed—the toys arrived in Holland at the right time, and on Christmas morning were given to the children. For a little while they were enchanted; they thought they should never see enough of a doll that could speak, wild beasts that could roar and growl, and birds that could sing.
But, alas! after a few hours, they were tired of a doll that could say nothing but ma—ma, pa—pa, of beasts that growled in but one tone, and the birds that sang the same note. Before evening the toys were strewn over the floor, some broken, all neglected and deserted; and the mother, on coming into the apartment, found one of the little princes crying at a window that overlooked a court, where some poor children were merrily playing.
“Crying to-day, my son?” she exclaimed. “Oh! what would dear grandmamma say?—what are you crying for?”
“I want to go and play with those children in that pretty dirt, mamma.”
This story was brought to my mind last Christmas eve. I went to see a very good neighbour of ours, Mrs. Selby, a carpenter’s wife. The whole family are industrious and economical, and obliged to be so, for Mr. Selby cannot always get work in these times. He will not call them hard times. “It would be a shame to us,” he says, “to call times hard when we never go hungry, and have decent clothes to cover us, and have health on our cheeks, and love in our hearts.”