In answer to such a request, often and importunately repeated, the author has from year to year delighted in seeing herself surrounded by a circle of joyous, eager faces, listening with awe to the terrors of Mrs. Crabtree, or smiling at the frolics of Harry and Laura. The stories, originally, were so short, that some friends, aware of their popularity, and conscious of their harmless tendency, took the trouble of copying them in manuscript for their own young friends; but the tales have since grown and expanded during frequent verbal repetitions, till, with various fanciful additions and new characters, they have enlarged into their present form, or rather so far beyond it, that several chapters are omitted, to keep the volume within moderate compass. Paley remarks, that "any amusement which is innocent, is better than none; as the writing of a book, the building of a house, the laying out of a garden, the digging of a fish-pond, even the raising of a cucumber;" and it is hoped that, while the author herself has found much interesting occupation in recording these often repeated stories, the time of herself and her young readers may be employed with some degree of profit, or she will certainly regret that it was not better occupied in the rearing of cucumbers. HOLIDAY HOUSE. CHAPTER I. CHIT CHAT. A school-boy, a dog, and a walnut tree, The more you strike 'em, the better they be. Laura and Harry Graham could scarcely feel sure that they ever had a mama, because she died while they were yet very young indeed; but Frank, who was some years older, recollected perfectly well what pretty playthings she used to give him, and missed his kind, good mama so extremely, that he one day asked if he might "go to a shop and buy a new mama?" Frank often afterwards thought of the time also, when he kneeled beside her bed to say his prayers, or when he sat upon her knee to hear funny stories about good boys and bad boys--all very interesting, and all told on purpose to show how much happier obedient children are, than those who waste their time in idleness and folly. Boys and girls all think they know the road to happiness without any mistake, and choose that which looks gayest and pleasantest at first, though older people, who have travelled that road already, can tell them that a very difficult path is the only one which ends agreeably; and those who begin to walk in it when they are young, will really find that "wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." It was truly remarked by Solomon, that "even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right." Therefore, though Frank was yet but a little boy, his friends, who observed how carefully he attended to his mama's instructions, how frequently he studied his Bible, and how diligently he learned his lessons, all prophesied that this merry, lively child, with laughing eyes, and dimpled cheeks, would