Now Mamsey is gifted with powers of divination and she smiled to herself. It will be a giglio spoon -a birthday gift for me!" she divined. She called

the boy and said:

"Now, my dear little Folly, I will let you have your ten francs and walk to Florence but not alone. You are too small to spend ten francs by yourself. You would be sure to buy something you would not care for. I will ask Herr August to take you; will that do, Folly?" The boy was delighted. "And you will not ask me for why, Mamsey?"

"No, dear, I will not ask you for why."

Herr August, the children's friend, smiled over Mamsey's divination and entered into the spirit of Folly's surprise, as only Herr August could. One day Mamsey took her trio to the Bargello, that stern old prison-palace of the Middle Ages which is now transformed into the National Museum.

They looked in vain for the Diavolino and paused before the exquisite bronze of Mercury by Gian of Bologna.

66

Why, he made also the Diavolino!" exclaimed Bonnie, for the Florentine imp is her favorite spoon.

"Yes;" echoed Don, "and the big green statue of Cosimo I., in the Piazza della Signoria."

Mamsey pointed out the winged cap and sandals of the Mercury, and bade them observe the delicate poise of the figure which seems about to spring into the air and wing its untrammeled way far up above the clouds. Then to impress the aerial god upon the childish minds, Mamsey added: "One of the Florentine spoons bears this flying Mercury."

Bonnie instantly nudged Folly with a vigorous elbow.
"A Mercury spoon, a Mercury spoon! she whispered.

"Be quiet!" shrieked Folly; " she will hear you."

Mamsey's face was marvelously impassive, but that evening she said to Herr August: "Folly will wish to buy a Mercury spoon, but please do not let him spend more than his ten francs."

Thus the day came when Folly trudged off to town in his dainty white flannel sailor suit with the ten francs tucked safely away in his breast pocket. Herr August met him at the square of San Marco, and changed the trip into a treat by giving him cakes and chocolate at what Don calls " a sweet shop."

Then- but why tell where they went? Mamsey divined, but she did not follow.

For a week to come the five children kept the secret bravely. Only Laddie, the scamp, confided to Mamsey

"Folly bringed you a buful 'poon!"

And Lella asked again and again; "What me give you for you birfday, Mamsey?"

March twentieth came all too quickly. After thirty, birthdays are so will

ingly skipped. It proved that Folly's inspiration had spread through the family in a way Mamsey had failed to divine.

Laddie's was

Laddie and Lell came first with their offerings -bookmarks. blue and Lell's was rose- because she is a bit of a rosebud herself. Object-blind folk might have seen only two colored cardboard slips with a pearly hand at the end of each, and along whose length meandered the modern legend: "Pear's Soap. Insures a Skin Like Ivory."

But Mamsey saw two dainty birthday gifts from loving baby hearts. Bonnie had worked day and night over an embroidered tea-cloth which she now presented wrapped in the folds of Garva's latest newspaper.

Best and last appeared a slender package of soft white tissue-paper, upon which was written: "For my precious darling Mamsey."

Mamsey made big eyes; she was never so surprised in her life. Slowly she unrolled the soft tissue to find the prettiest of silver spoons with a golden bowl, twisted stem and device of the Florentine giglio.

Now, Folly knows that Mamsey loves the giglio, emblem of Florence, the fair flower city. It is a conventionalized lily, or rather iris, such as spring wild and free upon the meadows and hills about Florence. Even before the old, old days of the Florentine Republic, the blue iris and the deep red lilies of the fields had bestowed upon the old walled town the appellation that is hers to-day, the Lily City." Mamsey promised to use the giglio spoon for her " very special own," whereupon all the younglings jumped about the room in delight. All but Don whose face was overcast.

"I only have nothing to give. I did not think of it. Why should the others think always and never I? I should love to give you something, Mamsey." It was so like our moony Don. His voice trembled and his throat choked with the big lump we all find so hard to swallow. Mamsey smiled at him.

"Let me tell you, Don; I bought myself a new inkstand the other day. A red one with a lid that clicks. You might make me a present of it. It is stupid to buy things for one's self. The inkstand shall be your gift to me." Don's face grew suddenly radiant.

Oh! I'm so glad, Mamsey. Besides, it is useful, 'specially for you. "After writing, Mamsey will refresh herself with a cup of tea served on my tea-cloth." said Bonnie.

And sip her tea with the giglio spoon," chirruped Folly, with a flourish of two hilarious heels in the air—so very expressive that it left nothing more to be said.

Jean Porter Rudd.

THE

UNCLE THOMAS.

HE Visitor was awakened from her last nap by a loud noise outside her window. She rubbed her eyes wider open. Yes, it was certainly a cat that was making a most terrific squalling. The Visitor jumped out of bed and ran to the window. The room was a second story back, and in the yard there grew a maple-tree whose branches touched the window-panes. The Visitor discovered the cat perched upon the branches, looking at her with an expression both indignant and appealing - and howling.

The Visitor's first thought was that it was a practical joke on the part of the Little Girl and Big Boy of the family, who had driven puss there, and would try to persuade her that city cats roosted in trees, or had gone up to serenade her.

"Shoo! Scat!" said the Visitor, clapping her hands toward the cat who, however, did not "scat" at all, but clung closer to the branch and miaoued. The Visitor heard the voice of the Little Girl at the door saying:

"We're sorry, Miss Mabel, but you must get right up and get dressed, because Uncle Thomas wants to come in, and so we must let him."

"Uncle Thomas! "Yes'm."

repeated the Visitor, wonderingly.

"What does he want to come in here for?" asked the Visitor, who was making a hurried toilet.

"Why, he don't want to stay on the tree all day, and he never will go down after he's climbed up," explained the Little Girl, as she was let into the room. "We always have to do this."

She went to the closet and brought out a board, and she and the Big Boy, who had followed her, ran it out the window so that one end rested on the sill and the other on a branch, near where the cat was clinging.

He stopped squalling when he saw these preparations and stepped gingerly along the branch until he reached the board, and then trotted to the windowsill. Most of the neighbors had come to their windows and were watching. "Oh! that's Uncle Thomas, then?" said the Visitor.

"Yes, of course. Poor Pussy!" said the Little Girl, fondling him when he reached the window-sill. But Uncle Thomas ungratefully struggled away, jumped to the floor, stretched himself and trotted out of the room.

"Do you always have to do that?" inquired the Visitor a little later, as she sipped her coffee, while Uncle Thomas, who was always attended to first, was lapping his saucer of milk.

"O, yes!" said the Little Girl. "He never will go down from the fence or the tree or anything -'cept stairs. He climbs the tree most every day, but we did hope he wouldn't do it before you were up this morning."

I'm sure we're a laughing-stock to the neighbors," said the Little Girl's Mother," but the children are so fond of that cat that we have to keep him." “Uncle Thomas," said the Little Girl's Father, "does not believe facilis est descensus Averni.' He would rather go up than down, and we keep him on ac

A

THE

Ta very early hour one September morning in Florence, I was aroused to semi-consciousness by a most unusual noise, and, as I lay half-asleep, I felt as though I ought to arise and investigate the cause of it. A sudden horror came over me that something was wrong with the steam pipes, but quickly followed the remembrance that I was in Italy, where we have no such disturbers of the domestic peace. Still the strange noise beat upon my ears, and finally sounded like the tinkling of many small bells in the dim distance.

I was just settling myself for one more nap, feeling sure that the strange