A spirited game may be played after this fashion. All seated round the table or fireplace. One child sings a solo--a verse of some nursery rhyme. For instance-- "Hi diddle diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon; The little dog laughed to see such fine sport, And the dish ran away with the spoon." A chorus of voices takes up the tune and the solo is repeated, after which the alphabet is sung through, and the last letter, Z, sustained and repeated again and again, to bother the next child whose turn it now is to sing the next solo. The new solo must be a nursery rhyme not hitherto sung by any of the company. If unable to supply a fresh rhyme the child stands out of the game and pays forfeit. "I APPRENTICE MY SON." In another parlour game of a rather interesting kind the youngest in the room begins by saying-- "I apprentice my son to a butcher; the first thing he sold was a pound of M." Each has a turn to guess what M may stand for--some kind of meat the butcher usually sells. Should the first person in the circle guess the correct meaning, it becomes his or her turn to ask the next question. Baker or grocer, chemist or draper, in fact any trade may be selected by the person whose turn it is to put the question. AN ARMENIAN CHILD'S GAME of a thousand years ago is still played by the Christian children of Asia. Like our Western street games of tops and tip-cats it perpetuates the cruelties of the persecutions which their ancestors suffered, a most terrible instance of the child's game outliving the serious performance of that which it represented. The frontier of the Armenian kingdom had been destroyed by one of the Christian Byzantine emperors, thus enabling the Seljouck Turks to pass through the Armenian kingdom, and deal out to the unoffending Asiatic Christians the terrors of pillage by firing their peaceful homesteads. England, France, and Germany have a modification of the game. In France the youngsters hand round a burning faggot, exclaiming-- "Petit bonhomme vit encore." German children play a similar game with a stick instead of a firebrand, and Halliwell gives the rhyme describing the English game as-- "Jack's alive and in very good health, If he die in your hand you must look to yourself." RUSSIAN SUPERSTITION. An old custom of the Russian maiden--identical with the English girl's habit on St. Valentine's Day--is still in vogue. Going into the street she asks the first man she meets his Christian name, believing that her future husband will be sure to bear the same. CHAPTER III. JEWISH RHYMES.