"Why didn't you do it, then?" demanded the lady.

"'Cauze he wouldn't grop," said Toddie; "he isn't all gropped yet."

True enough, the claw of the fish still hung at Toddie's finger, and Mrs. Burton spoiled a pair of four-button kids in detaching it, while Budge continued to laugh. At length, however, mirth gave place to brotherly love, and Budge tenderly remarked:

"Toddie, dear, don't you love Brother Budge?"

"Yesh," sobbed Toddie.

"Then you ought to be happy," said Budge, "for you've made _him_ awful happy. If the fish hadn't caught you, the general couldn't have pulled him off, an' then he wouldn't have tumbled into the pond, an' oh, my!--_didn't_ he splash bully!"

"Then _you's_ got to be bited with a fiss," said Toddie, "an' make him tumble in again, for _me_ to laugh 'bout."

"You're two naughty boys," said Mrs. Burton. "Is this the way you take care of your sick uncle?"

"_Did_ take care of him," exclaimed Toddie; "told him a lovely Bible story, an' you didn't, an' he wouldn't have had no Sunday at all if I hadn't done it. An' we's goin' to take him widin' this afternoon."

Mrs. Burton hurried home, but it seemed to her that she had never met so many inquiring acquaintances during so short a walk. Arrived at last, she ordered her nephews to their room, and flung herself in tears beside her husband, murmuring:

"Henry!"

And Mr. Burton, having viewed the ruined dress with the eye of experience, uttered the single word:

"Boys!"

"What am I to do with them?" asked the unhappy woman.

Mr. Burton was an affectionate husband. He adored womankind, and sincerely bemoaned its special grievances; but he did not resist the temptation to recall his wife's announcement of five days before, so he whispered:

"Train them."

Mrs. Burton's humiliation by her own lips was postponed by a heavy footfall, which, by turning her face, she discovered was that of her brother-in-law, Tom Lawrence, who remarked:

"Tender confidences, eh? Well, I'm sorry I intruded. There's nothing like them if you want to be happy. But Helen's pretty well to-day, and dying to have her boys with her, and I'm even worse with a similar longing. You can't spare them, I suppose?"

The peculiar way in which Tom Lawrence's eyes danced as he awaited a reply would, at any other time, have roused all the defiance in Alice Burton's nature; but now, looking at the front of her beautiful dress, she only said:

"Why--I suppose--we _might_ spare them for an hour or two!"

"You poor, dear Spartan," said Tom, with genuine sympathy, "you shall be at peace until their bedtime anyhow."

And Mrs. Burton found occasion to rearrange the bandage on her husband's face so as to whisper in his ear:

"Thank Heaven!"

SAILING UP STREAM.

[_The following is quoted, by permission, from Mr. Habberton's popular book_, "THE BARTON EXPERIMENT," _published by_ G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS, _New York_.]

The superintendency of the Mississippi Valley Woolen Mills was a position which exactly suited Fred Macdonald, and it gave him occasion for the expenditure of whatever superfluous energy he found himself possessed of, yet it did not engross his entire attention. The faculty which the busiest of young men have for finding time in which to present themselves, well clothed and unbusiness-like, to at least one young woman, is as remarkable and admirable as it is inexplicable. The evenings which did not find Fred in Parson Wedgewell's parlor were few indeed, and if, when he was with Esther, he did not talk quite as sentimentally as he had done in the earlier days of his engagement, and if he talked business very frequently, the change did not seem distasteful to the lady herself. For the business of which he talked was, in the main, a sort which loving women have for ages recognized as the inevitable, and to which they have subjected themselves with a unanimity which deserves the gratitude of all humanity. Fred talked of a cottage which he might enter without first knocking at the door, and of a partnership which should be unlimited; if he learned, in the course of successive conversations, that even in partnerships of the most extreme order many compromises are absolutely necessary, the lesson was one which improved his character in the ratio in which it abased his pride.

The cottage grew as rapidly as the mill, and on his returns from various trips for machinery there came with Fred's freight certain packages which prevented their owner from appearing so completely the absorbed businessman which he flattered himself that he seemed. Then the partnership was formed one evening in Parson Wedgewell's own church, in the presence of a host of witnesses, Fred appearing as self-satisfied and radiant as the gainer in such transactions always does, while Esther's noble face and drooping eyes showed beyond doubt who it was that was the giver.

As the weeks succeeded each other after the wedding, however, no acquaintance of the couple could wonder whether the gainer or the giver was the happier. Fred improved rapidly, as the schoolboy improves; but Esther's graces were already of mature growth, and rejoiced in their opportunity for development. Though she could not have explained how it happened, she could not but notice that maidens regarded her wonderingly, wives contemplated her wistfully, frowns departed and smiles appeared when she approached people who were usually considered prosaic. Yet shadows sometimes stole over her face, when she looked at certain of her old acquaintances, and the cause thereof soon took a development which was anything but pleasing to her husband.

"Fred," said Esther one evening, "it makes me real unhappy sometimes to think of the good wives there are who are not as happy as I am. I think of Mrs. Moshier and Mrs. Crayme, and the only reason that I can see is, their husbands drink."

"I guess you're right, Ettie," said Fred. "They didn't begin their domestic tyranny in advance, as _you_ did--bless you for it."

"But why _don't_ their husbands stop?" asked Esther, too deeply interested in her subject to notice her husband's compliment. "They must see what they're doing, and how cruel it all is."

"They're too far gone to stop; I suppose that's the reason," said Fred.

"It hasn't been easy work for _me_ to keep my promise, Ettie, and I'm a young man; Moshier and Crayme are middle-aged men, and liquor is simply necessary to them."

"That dreadful old Bunley wasn't too old to reform, it seems," said Esther. "Fred, I believe one reason is that no one has asked them to stop. See how good Harry Wainwright has been since he found that so many people were interested in him that day!"

"Ye--es," drawled Fred, evidently with a suspicion of what was coming, and trying to change the subject by suddenly burying himself in his memorandum-book. But this ruse did not succeed, for Esther crossed the room to where Fred sat, placed her hands on his shoulders, and a kiss on his forehead, and exclaimed:

"Fred, _you're_ the proper person to reform those two men!"

"Oh, Ettie," groaned Fred, "you're entirely mistaken. Why, they'd laugh right in my face, if they didn't get angry and knock me down. Reformers want to be older men, better men, men like your father, for instance, if people are to listen to them."

"Father says they need to be men who understand the nature of those they are talking to," replied Esther; and you once told me that you understood Moshier and Crayme perfectly."

"But just think of what they are, Ettie," pleaded Fred. "Moshier is a contractor, and Crayme's a steamboat captain; _such_ men never reform, though they always are good fellows. Why, if I were to speak to either of them on the subject, they'd laugh in my face, or curse me. The only way I was able to make peace with them for stopping drinking myself, was to say that I did it to please my wife."

"Did they accept that as sufficient excuse?" asked Esther.

"Yes," said Fred reluctantly, and biting his lips over this slip of his tongue.

"Then you've set them a good example, and I can't believe its effect will be lost," said Esther.

"I sincerely hope it won't," said Fred, very willing to seem a reformer at heart, "nobody would be gladder than I to see those fellows with wives as happy as mine seems to be."

"Then why don't you follow it up, Fred, dear, and make sure of your hopes being realized? You can't imagine how much happier _I_ would be if I could meet those dear women without feeling that I had to hide the joy that's so hard to keep to myself."

The conversation continued with considerable strain to Fred's amiability; but his sophistry was no match for his wife's earnestness, and he was finally compelled to promise that he would make an appeal to Crayme, with whom he had a business engagement, on the arrival of Crayme's boat, the _Excellence_.

Before the whistles of the steamer were next heard, however, Esther learned something of the sufferings of would-be reformers, and found cause to wonder who was to endure most that Mrs. Crayme should have a sober husband; for Fred was alternately cross, moody, abstracted, and inattentive, and even sullenly remarked at his breakfast-table one morning that he shouldn't be sorry if the _Excellence_ were to blow up, and leave Mrs. Crayme to find her happiness in widowhood. But no such luck befell the lady: the whistle-signals of the _Excellence_ were again heard in the river, and the nature of Fred's business with the captain made it unadvisable for Fred to make an excuse for leaving the boat unvisited.

It _did_ seem to Fred Macdonald as if everything conspired to make his task as hard as it could possibly be. Crayme was already under the influence of more liquor than was necessary to his well-being, and the boat carried as passengers a couple of men, who, though professional gamblers, Crayme found very jolly company when they were not engaged in their business calling. Besides, Captain Crayme was running against time with an opposition boat which had just been put upon the river, and he appreciated the necessity of having the boat's bar well stocked and freely opened to whoever along the river was influential in making or marring the reputation of steamboats. Fred finally got the captain into his own room, however, and made a freight contract so absent-mindedly that the sagacious captain gained an immense advantage over him; then he acted so awkwardly, and looked so pale, that the captain suggested chills, and prescribed brandy. Fred smiled feebly, and replied,

"No, thank you, Sam; brandy's at the bottom of the trouble. I"--here Fred made a tremendous attempt to rally himself--"I want _you_ to swear off, Sam."

The astonishment of Captain Crayme was marked enough to be alarming at first; then the ludicrous feature of Fred's request struck him so forcibly that he burst into a laugh before whose greatness Fred trembled and shrank.