One day he thus shouted out, quoting the well-known text, "Watch! watch! watch, I say!" when bounce, came the dog almost into his arms. You may be sure that the boys all took occasion to relieve their pent-up restlessness by one uproarious laugh, before their astonished parents had time to frown them into silence. Honest Watch had been sitting with his eye fixed, as usual, on the minister. At the first mention of his name, he went, his ears and his eyes kindled; at the second, he was still more deeply moved; at the third, he obeyed, and flew completely over the pew rail and pulpit door, with leaps that did equal honor to his muscular powers and his desire to obey. After such a strict interpretation of the letter rather than the spirit, Watch was effectually forbidden church-going.--_Selected._ [Illustration: MY LITTLE PLAYMATE.] _Volume 13, Number 12._ Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO. _Jan. 23, 1886._ THE PANSY. [Illustration: THE BABE IN THE MANGER.] ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. BY MARGARET SIDNEY. III. "IT was nothing," said George Edward carelessly, as the family assembled around him in excited gratitude, and with fulsome praise, drawn thither by queer little noises down stairs in the library, and rattlings of window, suggestive of burglars, "I only pulled her in. She was good, and helped. Do stop talking of it; let's have the stockings. It's most morning." "You are a brave boy," cried Hortense's father, uncle Gerald. "You've saved her life," exclaimed Hortense's mother. Hortense disengaged herself from her parents, and ran up to her cousin, putting her arms around him. "I wasn't good. I wouldn't go up stairs when he told me, and I climbed up on the window-sill to lean out and see Santa Claus coming, and I slipped, and the window came down on my fingers, and I rolled around on the shed and most pulled him off." "And you needn't try to hide your hand," said uncle Thomas, where they were visiting, "because we all see that it is bleeding." At that there was a second rush for the hero of the hour, and the excited relatives each had to examine for himself and herself George Edward's thumb torn by the catch of the blind as he pulled himself up. To save him from further sympathy, his mother seconded his proposition to have the Christmas stockings then and there. "I know it is only quarter-past two," she said laughingly, "but these young folks won't sleep a wink if we send them to bed, nor I fancy will we elders do much better. Let us all go up to our rooms, give ourselves just ten minutes to array ourselves in something more festive and befitting the occasion than"-- "These bath wrappers, mackintoshes, and gossamer waterproofs," finished somebody in the group for her. "O, aunt Fannie, aunt Fannie, what a Christmas frolic," cried two of the other mammas, not waiting for her to finish. "O, aunt Fannie, aunt Fannie, what fun!" cried the young people.