"But you waited till there was nothing more to be done, before you indulged in that amusement, it appears," he responded.
And Meg never could quite understand why Tom's very next Christmas present to her took the form of a little silver lace-pin, inscribed in tiny letters of blue enamel with the mysterious words, "La Chevalière Bayarde."
"Haven't you made a mistake, Tom?" she asked, in some perplexity. "The pin is lovely, but that was Amabel's name, you know, not mine."
"You won the spurs," said Tom, laconically; and no other answer could he be induced to give.
"THE INFANT JESUS."—From a Painting by Carlo Maratti.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT AT EASTER.
Old Winter has gone at last, and left the sun at peace to his work of warming the ground and coaxing out of it the grass and flowers. But Winter was icy cold this year. He staid with us as long as he dared, kept his rough winds blowing, froze all the water he could spy out, and made the snow fall. The snow! It came falling, driving, whirling down, again and again, and so many times again, that the boys shouted themselves hoarse, and snow-balls were as common as sparrows, and commoner too, sometimes, for the sparrows lost one another in the storms. A merry old friend was Winter! He kept the sleigh-bells jingling, and the boys on skates until even eight-year-old chaps learned the "Dutch Roll" and "Eights," and bad boys of all ages played "hookey." He hung more icicles than ever on our eaves and lamp-posts, and loaded the telegraph wires with ice until they broke and fell into tangles at the street corners.