Sitting apart from the mirthful crowd, quite unobserved and seemingly wholly engrossed in themselves, are little Daisy Warburton and the quaintly-attired Mother Goose, before mentioned. It is long past the child's latest bedtime, but her step-mamma has been so entirely preoccupied, and Millie so carelessly absorbed in watching the gayeties of the evening, that the little one has been overlooked, and feels now quite like her own mistress. "Ha! ha!" she laughs merrily, leaning, much at her ease, upon the knee of Mother Goose; "ha! ha! what nice funny stories you tell; almost as nice as my new mamma's stories. Only," looking up with exquisite frankness, "your voice is not half so nice as my new mamma's." "Because I'm an old woman, dearie," replies Mother Goose, a shade of something like disapproval in her tone. "Do you really want to see Mother Hubbard's dog, little girl?" "Old Mother Hubbard--she went to the cupboard," sings Daisy gleefully. "Of course I do, Mrs. Goose. Does Mother Hubbard look like you?" "A little." "And--you said Cinderella's coach was down near my papa's gate?" "So it is, dearie." Then looking cautiously about her, and lowering her voice to a whisper: "How would you like to ride to see Mother Hubbard in Cinderella's coach, and come right back, you know, before it turns into a pumpkin again?" The fair child clasps two tiny hands, and utters a cry of delight. "Oh! _could_ we?" she asks, breathlessly. "Of course we can, if you are very quiet and do as I bid you, and if you don't get afraid." "I don't get afraid--not often," replies the child, drawing still closer to Mother Goose, and speaking with hushed gravity. "When I used to be afraid at night, my mamma, my new mamma, you know, taught me to say like this." Clasping her hands, she sinks upon her knees and lifts her face to that which, behind its grotesque mask, is distorted by some unpleasant emotion. And then the childish voice lisps reverently: "Dear God, please take care of a little girl whose mamma has gone to Heaven. Keep her from sin, and sickness, and danger. Make the dark as safe as the day, and don't let her be afraid, for Jesus' sake. Amen." Something like a smothered imprecation dies away in the throat of the listener, and then she says, in honeyed accents: "That's a very nice little prayer, and your new mamma is a very fine lady. When you come back from your ride in Cinderella's carriage, you can tell your new mamma all about it." "Oh! how nice!" "It will be charming. Come into the conservatory, dearie. I think we can see Cinderella's lamps from there." With the confidence born of childish innocence, the little one places her hand in that of Mother Goose, and is led away. The conservatory is all aglow with light and color and rich perfume, and it is almost tenantless. The broad low windows are open, and a narrow balcony, adorned with tall vases and hung with drooping vines, projects from them scarce three feet from the ground.