Katharine R. McD.—Thanks for your kindness in copying for us the metrical table of the Kings and Queens of England. It will be better, however, for the boys and girls to go to the history of England; and follow the line of the royal succession for themselves. We prize most what costs us most labor.
Beacon Beach, Oneida Lake, New York.
Dear Postmistress,—I am in the woods now, but am soon going up town to my home. I was ten years old a few weeks ago, and my papa has given me Harper's Young People for a birthday present ever since it began. The other day my mamma and I took a walk in the woods, and found two kinds of fungus—one was the "earth star" (a good description of which is in Appleton's Cyclopædia), the other was tiny toadstools growing on oak leaves in the sand, with slender, shining stems, black as ebony, and whitish tops, which look as if designed for fairy parasols. Would you please tell me the name?
I have a puzzle for the C. Y. P. R. U.'s that I found in a newspaper: "I went out in the woods and got it; after I got it, I looked for it; the more I looked for it the less I liked it; I brought it home in my hand because I couldn't find it."
Irma C. F.
Who can guess the answer to Irma's puzzle? I will give you three weeks to think it over, and will tell you the answer in No. 114. I am sorry that it is not possible from the description to identify the particular kind of fungus which Irma has found. There are more than two hundred fungi which infest the living oak, and myriads more which grow on dead leaves. Even were the fairy parasol sent, it would probably be withered by the time it reached this Post-office Box.
I am very much obliged to dear Irma for writing plainly on purpose to save my eyes. The eyes of a busy Postmistress like myself have to work pretty steadily, and they always feel thankful to such thoughtful little girls. But you ought to see how indignantly they snap when some of the pencilled letters arrive, almost faded out before the Postmistress gets hold of them.
The members of the C. Y. P. R. U. will find in this number, under the title of "The Fairy Fungi," by Mrs. S. B. Herrick, a most interesting account of the good and mischief worked by these strange little inmates of the vegetable world. The article on "Children of the Pantomime," by Mrs. Helen S. Conant, gives a striking and pathetic picture of the lives led by the children who are employed by London managers in getting up these entertainments. "A Novel Present" will help some of the girl readers who are undecided what to make for some little friend for Christmas.