and decayed cabbage-leaves was sometimes wafted into the house from this in the summer. "Perhaps it would be better to shut the window," Mrs Graham would say to Iris. Iris thought it would be better for the boys not to keep rabbits; but to any hint of this kind her mother's answer was always the same: "They may be a little disagreeable sometimes, dear, but I couldn't deprive the poor boys of one of their few amusements." Her words came into Iris's mind this evening as her eye rested on the unsuccessful garden, and she bent over her work again with a sigh. Always someone else to think of, someone else to work for, never a little bit of pleasure that was quite her own. How could she be happy? And if she were not happy how could she be contented? It was hard to have nothing pretty to look at. Some people lived in the midst of pretty things; there was her godmother, for instance, who never saw anything ugly or disagreeable near her, but everything that was pleasant and beautiful. People who lived in places like Paradise Court could be patient, and kind, and gentle without any difficulty, but in Albert Street--A sharp scream from the other side of the folding doors, the sound of something thrown, and then a volley of angry sobs and cries. Iris started up and rushed into the next room; she had left her two little sisters there happily at play, but she now found a very different state of things. Dottie, a child of five, stood in the middle of the room, with clenched fists and puckered red face, screaming at the top of her voice, while Susie sat on the floor near nursing a rag doll with perfect composure and calmness. "Naughty Dottie!" said Iris earnestly, "to make such a noise. What's the matter?" Dottie could not speak, for she was using all her breath to scream with, but she held out an appealing dumpy arm, and pointed to the doll. "Why, that's Dottie's doll, Susie," said Iris, turning to the other little girl; "did you take it from her?" Susie nodded, still with an unmoved countenance, and Dottie redoubled her screams. Iris put both hands over her ears in despair. "Dottie," she said, "if you don't try to leave off I shall put you to bed, and let Susie keep the doll." It was not at all easy for Dottie to leave off when she was once well set going, but she checked herself a little. "Give the doll back, Susie," said Iris. Susie looked up to see if her sister were in earnest, and meeting a glance of great severity she rose and advanced towards Dottie sideways, with one finger in her mouth, and holding the doll by the legs, head downwards. Dottie, still sniffing and sobbing, made a convulsive snatch at it. "Kiss each other," said Iris, for this was always a sign that the quarrel was over for the time and peace agreed on between the two little girls. They had hardly given each other the angry embrace usual at such moments when a boy's voice rang shrilly from the top of the stairs.