Then I should be compelled to lock my window-blinds--or theirs, and this in the summer season, too! Oh, if Helen could have but passed the house as that white-robed procession had filed along the piazza-roof! I lay pondering over the vast amount of unused ingenuity that was locked up in millions of children, or employed only to work misery among unsuspecting adults, when I heard light footfalls at my bedside, and saw a small shape with a grave face approach and remark:-- "I wants to come in your bed." "What for, Toddie?" "To fwolic; papa always fwolics us Sunday mornin's. Tum, Budgie, Ocken Hawwy's doin' to fwolic us." Budge replied by shrieking with delight, tumbling out of bed, and hurrying to that side of my bed not already occupied by Toddie. Then those two little savages sounded the onslaught and advanced precipitately upon me. Sometimes, during the course of my life, I have had day-dreams which I have told to no one. Among these has been one--not now so distinct as it was before my four years of campaigning--of one day meeting in deadly combat the painted Indian of the plains; of listening undismayed to his frightful war-whoop, and of exemplifying in my own person the inevitable result of the pale-face's superior intelligence. But upon this particular Sunday morning I relinquished this idea informally, but forever. Before the advance of these diminutive warriors I quailed contemptibly, and their battle-cry sent more terror to my soul than that member ever experienced from the well-remembered rebel yell. According to Toddie, I was going to "fwolic" THEM; but from the first they took the whole business into their own little but effective hands. Toddie pronounced my knees, collectively a-horsie "bonnie," and bestrode them, laughing gleefully at my efforts to unseat him, and holding himself in position by digging his pudgy fingers into whatever portions of my anatomy he could most easily seize. Budge shouted, "I want a horsie, too!" and seated himself upon my chest. "This is the way the horsie goes," explained he, as he slowly rocked himself backward and forward. I began to realize how my brother-in-law, who had once been a fine gymnast, had become so flat-chested. Just then Budge's face assumed a more spirited expression, his eyes opened wide and lightened up, and, shouting, "This the way the horsie TROTS," he stood upright, threw up his feet, and dropped his forty-three avoirdupois pounds forcibly upon my lungs. He repeated this operation several times before I fully recovered from the shock conveyed by his combined impudence and weight; but pain finally brought my senses back, and with a wild plunge I unseated my demoniac riders and gained a clear space in the middle of the floor. "Ah--h--h--h--h--h--h," screamed Toddie, "I wants to wide horshie backen." "Boo--oo--oo--oo--," roared Budge, "I think you're real mean. I don't love you at all."