"Yes, dear: your choice is a wise one. You may go." Elfrida ran up stairs, put on her cape and bonnet, ran out to the bookstore, and bought the book. It was hard at first to find out the meaning of some of the words. But the stories were simple, and some of the words were so like the same words in German, that she did not have to look them out. One day she came running home from school, and said, "O mamma! a little American girl named Clara now comes to our school. She says she will teach me to read." The little American girl kept her promise. First she would give Elfrida a lesson in English, and then Elfrida would give her a lesson in German. And so they both grew to be nice little scholars. Elfrida would talk to Clara in English, and Clara would answer her in German. Soon they could each talk both languages quite well. IDA FAY. [Illustration] "PARLEY-VOO." "PARLEY-VOO" was the nickname of a little boy four years old, who was born in Paris. He did not come home until after he had learned to talk, and then he spoke French. So, when he went out to play with the other boys, they laughed at him, and called him "Parley-voo." His aunt laughed at him too, sometimes. She was rather a queer aunt, and not at all like the aunts we read of in story-books. But his father was just the best father that anybody ever heard of. They lived in Sunland, a little town not many miles from Boston; and every morning Parley-voo would hurry down to give his father a kiss before he went away to his business in the city. Then, when the train went by, he would stand at the window, and wave his little white handkerchief, and then his father would wave back at him, as if to say, "Good-by, once more, my dear little Parley-voo, good-by!" But one morning he was so very sleepy, that he could not open his eyes when his nurse told him it was time to get up. He called the nurse a _bonne_, as they do in Paris. He pushed her away, and went to sleep again, and the first thing he heard was the train going by with a "choo, choo, choo," and his father was gone without a kiss. Then Parley-voo cried, and said it was his _bonne's_ fault. He went to the window, and there he stood crying. He could not eat the nice breakfast that his nurse brought him, and would not let her dress him. So she went away, and shut the door, and left him to dress himself. In his hurry he put on one red stocking and one blue one. His little kilt suit hung so high up in the closet, that he could not reach it: so he drew on an old faded dress a good deal too short, and it made him look just like a girl. In this rig he went down stairs, and his aunt laughed so that she almost cried when she saw him. That made him feel worse than ever, and he grew worse than ever. I am sorry to tell it; but he flew at her, and kicked her. His mother could not stop him, and his aunt had to run away.