Say that in this woman and the work she is singing over there are no graceful suggestions which, in their worth and purity and tenderness, deserves to be ranked with imaginings and mental creations of exceeding beauty--say, as some hard critics, aver, that she and her occupation are the prosiest of prosy themes, and that the sentiment which animates her and makes her contented and happy belongs of necessity to the dullest of dull clay; tear from her and her surroundings every vestige of ideality: divest her of everything but what is coarse and common, and make the room in which she sits a place to moan over the hard realities of life--still in this very room Fairyland dwells. The little head that lies so peacefully upon the pillow teems with wonders; imagination is bringing to the child fantastic creations and scenes of exquisite loveliness and grace. Though the strangest of contrasts are presented to her, there is harmony in everything. The light, the fresh air, the brighter clouds than those she sees in the narrow streets, play their parts in her dreams in a thousand happy shapes and forms. She walks with Felix in a field, gathering flowers more beautiful than she has ever yet seen; there are silver leaves and golden leaves, and all the colours of the rainbow hide themselves in flower-bells, and then peep out to gladden her. There are lilies, and roses, and wallflowers, and daisies, with the fresh dew glistening on their leaves and stems. She and Felix wander and wander until they are tired, and sit down to rest amidst the flowers, which grow and arch until they are buried in them, and the light of day is shut out. Then they sink and sink through the flowers, which dissolve and melt away, as it seems, and she and Felix are walking among the stars. It is night, and the stars are all around them. Suddenly, in the clouds which float in solemn splendour beneath them, a valley of light appears, and she looks through wondrous depths into a shining sea, with the only ship her world contains sailing on it. When she and Felix are walking at the bottom of the sea--as they do presently--the stars are still with them, and the Captain and the Doll play their parts in her beautiful dreams. Happiest of the happy is Pollypod. Up the stairs stumbles a tired-out man, with a dog close at his heels. Mrs. Podmore jumps from her chair at the sound of his steps, and almost in the twinkling of an eye the table is made ready for supper. "Well, old woman," says Jim, with a great sigh of relief at being home at last. He speaks in gasps as usual, as if, after his day's hard labour, he finds talking an effort. Mrs. Podmore takes a blue-cotton handkerchief containing an empty basin from him--Jim's favourite dinner is a meat-pudding, in the making of which his wife would not yield the palm to the Queen's cook. Snap, the faithful dog, greets Mrs. Podmore with sniffs at the hem of her gown, and when this duty is performed, leaps upon the bed and licks Pollypod's face.