Mr. Brown hastily laid the letter aside, and again called upon Miss Elserly. Again she met him with many signs of the embarrassment whose cause he now understood so well; yet as he was about to deliver an awkward apology a single look from under Miss Elserly's eyebrows--only a glance, but as searching and eloquent as it was swift--stopped his tongue. He took Miss Elserly's hand in his own and stammered: "I came to plead for the major." "And I shan't listen to you," said she, raising her eyes with so tender a light in them that Hubert Brown immediately hid the eyes themselves in his heart, lest the light should be lost. BUDGE AND TODDIE AT AUNT ALICE'S. [_The following is quoted, by permission, from Mr. Habberton's popular book_, "OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN," _published by_ G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS, _New York_.] Mrs. Burton's birthday dawned brightly, and it is not surprising that, as it was her first natal anniversary since her marriage to a man who had no intention or ability to cease being a lover--it is not surprising that her ante-breakfast moments were too fully and happily occupied to allow her to even think of two little boys who had already impressed upon her their willingness and general ability to think for themselves. As for the young men themselves, they awoke with the lark, and with a heavy sense of responsibility also. The room of Mrs. Burton's chambermaid joined their own, and the occupant of that room having been charged by her mistress with the general care of the boys between dark and daylight, she had gradually lost that faculty for profound slumber which so notably distinguishes the domestic servant from all other human beings. She had grown accustomed to wake at the first sound in the boys' room, and on the morning of her mistress's birthday the first sound she heard was: "Tod!" No response could be heard; but a moment later the chambermaid heard: "T--o--o--od!" "Ah--h--h--ow!" drawled a voice, not so sleepily but it could sound aggrieved. "Wake up, dear old Toddie, budder--it's Aunt Alice's birthday now." "Needn't bweak my earzh open, if '_tis,_ whined Toddie." "I only holloed in _one_ ear, Tod," remonstrated Budge "an' you ought to love dear Aunt Alice enough to have _that_ hurt a little rather than not wake up." A series of groans, snarls, whines, grunts, snorts, and remonstrances semi-articulate were heard, and at length some complicated wriggles and convulsive kicks were made manifest to the listening ear, and then Budge said: "_That's_ right; now let's get up an' get ready. Say; do you know that we didn't think anything about having some music. Don't you remember how papa played the piano last mamma's birthday when she came down stairs, an' how happy it made her, an' we danced around?" "Aw wight," said Toddie. "Let's." "_Tell_ you what," said Budge, "let's _both_ bang the piano, like mamma an' Aunt Alice does together sometimes."