Somehow, none of these seem to have interested little Agnes, or been of the least good to her. Her pound and a half of the best of the modern pious and picturesque is (being of course originally boardless) now a crumpled and variously doubled-up heap, brought down in a handful, or lapful, rather; most of the former insides of the pamphlets being now the outsides; and every form of dog’s ear, puppy’s ear, cat’s ear, kitten’s ear, rat’s ear, and mouse’s ear, developed by the contortions of weary fingers at the corners of their didactic and evangelically sibylline leaves. I ask if I may borrow one to take home and read. Agnes is delighted; but undergoes no such pang of care as a like request would have inflicted on my boyish mind, and needed generous stifling of;—nay, had I asked to borrow the whole heap, I am not sure whether Agnes’s first tacit sensation would not have been one of deliverance. Being very fond of pretty little girls, (not, by any means, excluding pretty—tall ones,) I choose, for my own reading, a pamphlet [5] which has a picture of a beautiful little girl with long hair, lying very ill in bed, with her mother putting up her forefinger at her brother, who is crying, with a large tear on the side of his nose; and a legend beneath: ‘Harry told his mother the whole story.’ The pamphlet has been doubled up by Agnes right through the middle of the beautiful little girl’s face, and no less remorselessly through the very middle of the body of the ‘Duckling Astray,’ charmingly drawn by Mr. Harrison Weir on the opposite leaf. But my little Agnes knows so much more about real ducklings than the artist does, that her severity in this case is not to be wondered at. I carry my Children’s Prize penny’s-worth home to Brantwood, full of curiosity to know “the whole story.” I find that this religious work is edited by a Master of Arts—no less—and that two more woodcuts of the most finished order are given to Harry’s story,—representing Harry and the pretty little girl, (I suppose so, at least; but, alas, now with her back turned to me,—the cuts came cheaper so,) dressed in the extreme of fashion, down to her boots,—first running with Harry, in snow, after a carriage, and then reclining against Harry’s shoulder in a snowstorm. I arrange my candles for small print, and proceed to read this richly illustrated story. Harry and his sister were at school together, it appears, at Salisbury; and their father’s carriage was sent, in a snowy day, to bring them home for the holidays. They are to be at home by five; and their mother has invited a children’s party at seven. Harry is enjoined by his father, in the letter which conveys this information, to remain inside the carriage, and not to go on the box.