"What a stunning whistle!" commented Allan, admiringly. Higher and clearer it rose, nearer and shriller it came, until it sounded close into his very ear, piercing its sharp way like a steel point. He started, and sprang aside to escape it; then it suddenly stopped.
"Well, sir, is it possible you are awake at last?" said a cheery voice. "You go down to your work like one of the Seven Sleepers. Here I've been whistling 'Wha'll be King but Charlie?' right in your very ear, long enough to wake the Sleeping Beauty herself." It was his father who spoke. There he stood by Allan's bedside, laughing and tossing the covers off from the bewildered boy. "Listen, sleepy-head; your mother has been playing the same tune for ten minutes at least on the library piano. She says the new picture brought back the old tune. Come, sir, breakfast is waiting. Dress on the double-quick, you sluggard."
A DOLLS' RECEPTION.
A few days before Christmas there was given in New York a dolls' reception in aid of the Sea-side Sanitarium—the charity that takes poor children of the great city to the sea-side for a few days each summer.
This reception was given in a hall on Thirty-third Street, and consisted of a series of tableaux, in which all the characters were represented by the most lovely and exquisitely dressed French dolls. These tableaux were shown in dainty booths tastefully draped and decorated, so that the effect was extremely pretty, and the reception furnished a novel and delightful entertainment to the children who attended it in throngs during the three days that it lasted.
At the "Birthday Party" the name of each doll-guest appeared on a dainty little dinner card laid beside each plate.