At that moment Nellie came in at the door, wet and dirty, with the blood dropping from a cut on her forehead, and crying bitterly. "Oh, my poor little girl, where have you been?" said mamma, as she wiped the blood from her face. "I was Robinson Crusoe," sobbed Nellie, "and the cake was my provisions, and when the savages saw my cake they came swimming and flying all on to my raft; then I tried to push them off, and I tumbled right into the water and mud, and they got my cake; and my dollies are drowned." "So you went to the duck pond to play; you knew better than that," said mamma sternly. "If she has disobeyed you, she must stay at home," said papa. "Come, Gracie!" In a moment they were driving along the beautiful shady road that led to aunt Mary's. At first, Gracie felt too sorry for Nellie to be very happy. But her father, noticing her sad face, told her that if Nellie was a good girl, he would take her next week, and then he told so many funny stories about himself when he was a little boy, that it was not long before she was laughing merrily. What a welcome they had at aunt Mary's. "We knew you were coming to-day," said Katie, who was Gracie's cousin, "and we are freezing ice-cream down cellar." Then they took their dolls and played happily together all day long. When Gracie was riding home she told her father that she had never had such a happy day before in her life. "Oh, such a lovely time as I have had!" she exclaimed, as she bounded into the house. Grandma was rocking Nellie in her arms, and was just finishing her evening story. "And so you see, my dear, that just as soon as Jacob made up his mind to be a good boy, all his troubles ended. Everybody loved him, and he was very happy and good." "I like your kind of stories to-night, grandma," said Nellie softly, in the old lady's ear, "and I am going to be good to be happy all the rest of the week." "Say all the rest of your life, my dear," whispered back grandma. THE KING OF THE WHITE LILY. YOU'VE never seen a palace? Why, my dears, you have seen a great many. Sit round me here, and I will tell you about one, the ruins of which you saw this morning. In some respects it was quite remarkable; not much like the one Queen Victoria lives in. This palace had six walls, and only one room. There were three inner walls, and three outer ones, and wherever two inner walls met, an outer wall covered the place. The people who dwelt in the palace called the walls the "Perianth." Each of the inner walls were called a "petal," and each of the outer ones a "sepal." They were covered outside and inside with snowy white silk, filled with the most delicious perfume. There were no windows, for each wall tapered to a point at, the upper end, and drooped over the outside of the palace, leaving it, open to the light and the pure air.