world! We children knew too by experience the relish that the imagination may impart to the simplest fare, unconsciously resembling one of the creations of the great English novelist as we “made believe” to spread a little butter on the bread which the hygienic theories of the age insisted on our eating dry! But everything has its compensation, and who knows if those pleasures of the imagination, which were our chief resource, are not denied to the younger generation, from whom we scarcely seem to exact even needful self-restraint and self-denial, much less to call upon them for any exceptional sacrifice of their own comfort. Where every whim is gratified from the outset, there remains neither the necessity nor the inclination to seek refuge from unpleasant realities in a fairer world, to spread one’s wings and take flight for the realms of Fancy. Do the children of the present day even rightly believe in the possibility of thus spreading their wings? Would not some of these little sceptics laugh at the idea? Poor little things! Can it really be that there is no fairyland for them, no enchanted isles in the distant ocean, no kingdoms to conquer, no heroic deeds to be performed, that their souls find complete satisfaction in the prosaic details of everyday life, and never soar beyond the region of dull commonplace fact of their dreary school-hours? They little know of what they are deprived! They could never guess the joy we knew in the possession of this wondrous secret, this magic key, which unlocked the gates of fairyland, of the world of dreams, of noble adventure, wherein we could wander at will. What battles we fought, what gallant deeds we performed, what wrongs we redressed with the aid of those invisible armies, always at hand to come to our assistance and conduct us to victory, when the odds seemed too overpowering! But we had not invariably such exalted ambitions as these, it was not even always the discovery of some lonely desert island on which we were bent, but a much simpler, more modest lot satisfied us, provided it were but sufficiently removed from that which in truth was ours! Thus it was one of my favourite ideas from the time I was four years old, to be a village schoolmistress, but I could not persuade my brother to promise that he would settle down beside me as the schoolmaster. That would have clashed with his dream of being a soldier, so it was settled that I should be the “daughter of the regiment,” the _vivandiére_, and accompany it everywhere so that we might not be separated. Ah! what marvellous adventures, what hairbreadth escapes, what glorious triumphs were ours! Sometimes we were sold as slaves, at others we were bold sea-farers and again quiet peasant-folk carrying our spades and milk-cans. It was by this means that we kept up our spirits, and preserved our good humour successfully, in spite of all that was irksome in our actual surroundings. Thanks to my lively