"He grew strong in body and spirit," said Mrs. Burton, "and everybody loved Him; but before He had time to do all that, an angel came and frightened His papa in a dream, and told him that the king of that country would kill little Jesus if he could find Him. So Joseph, the papa of Jesus, and Mary, His mamma, got up in the middle of the night, and started off to Egypt."

"Seems to me that Egypt was 'bout as bad in those days as Europe is now," remarked Budge. "Whenever papa tells about anybody that nobody can find, he says, 'Gone to Europe, I s'pose.' What did they find when they got there?"

"I don't know," said Mrs. Burton, musing. "I suppose the papa worked hard for money to buy good food and comfortable resting-places for his wife and baby; and I suppose the mamma walked about the fields, and picked pretty flowers for her baby to play with; and I suppose the baby cooed when His mamma gave them to Him, and laughed and danced and played, and then got tired, and came and hid His little face in His mamma's lap, and was taken into her arms and held ever so tight, and fell asleep, and that His mother looked into His face as if she would look through it, while she tried to find out what her baby would be and do when He grew up, and whether He would be taken away from _her_, while it seemed as if she couldn't live at all without having Him very closely pressed to her breast and--"

Mrs. Burton's voice grew a little shaky, and, finally, failed her entirely. Budge came in front of her, scrutinized her intently, but with great sympathy, also, and, finally, leaned his elbows on her knees, dropped his face into his own hands, looked up into her face, and remarked:

"Why, Aunt Alice, she was just like _my_ mamma, wasn't she? An' I think _you_ are just like both of 'em!"

Mrs. Burton took Budge hastily into her arms, covered his face with kisses, and totally destroyed another chance of explaining the difference between the earthly and the heavenly to her pupils, while Toddie eyed the couple with evident disfavor, and remarked:

"_I_ fink 'twould be nicer if you'd see if dinner was bein' got ready, instead of stoppin' tellin' stories an' huggin' Budge. My tummuk's all gotted little again."

Mrs. Burton came back to the world of to-day from that of history, though not without a sigh, while the dog Jerry, who had divined the peaceful nature of the occasion so far as to feel justified in reclining beneath his mistress's chair, now contracted himself into the smallest possible space, slunk out of the doorway, and took a lively quickstep in the direction of the shrubbery. Toddie had seen him, however, and told the news to Budge, and both boys were soon in pursuit; noticing which the dog Jerry speedily betook himself to that distant retirement which the dog who has experience in small boys knows so well how to discover and maintain.

As the morning wore on, the boys grew restless, fought, drummed on the piano, snarled when that instrument was closed, meddled with everything that was within reach, and finally grew so troublesome that their aunt soon felt that to lose was cheaper than to save, so she left the house to the children, and sought the side of the lounge upon which her afflicted husband reclined. The divining sense of childhood soon found her out, however, and Budge remarked:

"Aunt Alice, if you're going to church, seems to me it's time you was getting ready."

"I can't go to church, Budge," sighed Mrs. Burton. "If I do, you boys will only turn the whole house upside down, and drive your poor uncle nearly crazy."

"No, we won't," said Budge. "You don't know what nice nurses we can be to sick people. _Papa_ says nobody can even _imagine_ how well we can take care of anybody until they see us do it. If you don't believe it, just leave us with Uncle Harry, an' stay home from church an' peek through the key-hole."

"Go on, Allie," said Mr. Burton. "If you want to go to church, don't be afraid to leave me. I think you _should_ go--after your experience of this morning. I shouldn't think your mind could be at peace until you had joined your voice with that of the great congregation, and acknowledged yourself to be a miserable sinner."

Mrs. Burton winced, but nevertheless retired, and soon appeared dressed for church, kissed her husband and her nephews, gave many last instructions, and departed. Budge followed her with his eye until she had stepped from the piazza, and then remarked, with a sigh of relief:

"_Now_ I guess we'll have what papa calls a good, old-fashioned time--we've got rid of _her_."

"Budge!" exclaimed Mr. Burton, sternly, and springing to his feet, "do you know who you are talking about? Don't you know that your Aunt Alice is my wife, and that she has saved you from many a scolding, done you many a favor, and been your best friend?"

"Oh, yes," said Budge, with at least a dozen inflections on each word, "but ev'ry day friends an' Sunday friends are kind o' different; don't you think so? _She_ can't make whistles, or catch bull-frogs, or carry both of us up the mountain on her shoulders, or sing 'Roll, Jordan.'"

"And do you expect _me_ to do all these things to-day?" asked Mr.

Burton.

"N--n--no," said Budge, "unless you should get well an' feel just like it; but we'd like to be with somebody who _could_ do 'em if he wanted to. We like ladies that's _all_ ladies, but then we like men that's all men, too. Aunt Alice is a good deal like an angel, I think, and you--you _ain't_. An' we don't want to be with angels all the time until we're angels ourselves."

Mr. Burton turned over suddenly and contemplated the back of the lounge at this honest avowal of one of humanity's prominent weaknesses, while Budge continued:

"We don't want _you_ to get to be an angel, so what I want to know is, how to make you well. Don't you think if I borrowed papa's horse and carriage an' took you ridin' you'd feel better? I know he'd lend 'em to me if I told him you were goin' to drive."

"And if you said you were going with me to take care of me?" suggested Mr. Burton.

"Y--e--es," said Budge, as hesitatingly as if such an idea had never occurred to him. "An' don't you think that up to the top of the Hawksnest Rock an' out to Passaic Falls would be the nicest places for a sick man to go? When you got tired of ridin' you could stop the carriage an' cut us a cane, or make us whistles, or find us pfingster apples (the seed-balls of the wild azalea), or even send us in swimming in a brook somewhere if you got tired of us."

"H'm!" grunted Mr. Burton.

"An' you might take fings to eat wif you," suggested Toddie, "an' when you got real tired and felt bad, you might stop and have a little picnic. I fink that would be dzust the fing for a man wif the toothache.

And we could help you lotsh."

"I'll see how I feel after dinner," said Mr. Burton. "But what are you going to do for me between now and then, to make me feel better?"

"We tell you storiezh," said Toddie. "_Them's_ what sick folks alwayzh likesh."

"Very well," said Mr. Burton. "Begin right away."

"Aw wight," said Toddie. "Do you want a sad story or a d'zolly one?"

"Anything," said Mr. Burton. "Men with the toothache can stand nearly anything. Don't draw on your imagination _too_ hard."

"Don't _never_ draw on madzinasuns," said Toddie; "I only draws on slatesh."

"Never mind; give us the story."

"Well," said Toddie, seating himself in a rocking-chair, and fixing his eyes on the ceiling, "guesh I'll tell about AbrahammynIsaac. Onesh the Lord told a man named Abraham to go up the mountain an' chop his little boy's froat open an' burn him up on a naltar. So Abraham started to go to do it. An' he made his little boy Isaac, that he was going to chop and burn up carry the kindlin' wood he was goin' to set him a-fire wiz.

An' I want to know if you fink that wazh very nysh of him?"

"Well,--no," said Mr. Burton.

"Tell you what," said Budge, "you don't ever catch _me_ carryin' sticks up the mountain, even if my papa wants me to."

"When they got up there," said Toddie, "Abraham made a naltar an' put little Ikey on it, an' took a knife an' was goin' to chop his froat open, when a andzel came out of hebben an' said: 'Stop a-doin' that.' So Abraham stopped, an' Ikey skooted; an' Abraham saw a sheep caught in the bushes, an' he caught _him_ an' killed him. He wasn't goin' to climb way up a mountain to kill somebody an' not have his knife bluggy a bit. An'

he burned the sheep up. An' then he went home again."

"I'll bet you Isaac's mamma never knew what his papa wanted to do with him," said Budge, "or she'd never let her little boy go away in the mornin'. Do you want to bet?"

"N--no, not on Sunday, I guess," said Mr. Burton. "Now, suppose you little boys go out of doors and play for a while, while uncle tries to get a nap."

The boys accepted the suggestion and disappeared. Half an hour later, as Mrs. Burton was walking home from church under escort of old General Porcupine, and enduring with saintly fortitude the general's compliments upon her management of the children, there came screams of fear and anguish from the general's own grounds, which the couple were passing.

"Who can that be?" exclaimed the general, his short hairs bristling like the quills of his titular godfather. "_We_ have no children."

"I--think I know the voices," gasped Mrs. Burton, turning pale.

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the general, with an accent which showed that he was wishing the reverse of blessings upon souls less needy than his own. "You don't mean--"

"Oh, I do!" said Mrs. Burton, wringing her hands. "Do hurry!"

The general puffed and snorted up his gravel walk and toward the shrubbery, behind which was a fish-pond, from which direction the sound came. Mrs. Burton followed, in time to see her nephew Budge help his brother out of the pond, while the general tugged at a large crawfish which had fastened its claw upon Toddie's finger. The fish was game, but, with a mighty pull from the general, and a superhuman shriek from Toddie, the fish's claw and body parted company, and the general, still holding the latter tightly, staggered backward, and himself fell into the pond.

"Ow--ow--ow!" howled Toddie, clasping the skirt of his aunt's mauve silk in a ruinous embrace, while the general floundered and snorted like a whale in dying agonies, and Budge laughed as merrily as if the whole scene had been provided especially for his entertainment. Mrs. Burton hurried her nephews away, forgetting, in her mortification, to thank the general for his service, and placing a hand over Toddie's mouth.

"It hurts," mumbled Toddie.

"What did you touch the fish at all for?" asked Mrs. Burton.

"It was a little baby-lobster," sobbed Toddie; "an' I loves little babies--all kinds of 'em--an' I wanted to pet him. An' then I wanted to grop him."