Sometimes at night, after the day's work is over, the ducks have
come home, and the stars have come out, she sits at the door of the
boat-house, and watches the great bright fireflies over the marshes,
and thinks of the blue lake Syhoo, covered with lilies, where gilded
boats are sailing, and the people seem so happy.

Up in the high-walled garden of the great house on the hill, the
night-moths have spread their broad, soft wings, and are flitting
among the flowers, and the little girl with the small feet lies on her
silken bed, half asleep. She, too, thinks of the lake and the lilies,
but she knows nothing about Pen-se, who lives down upon the river.

See, the sun has gone from them. It must be morning for us now.



THE LITTLE DARK GIRL.


In this part of the world, Manenko would certainly be considered
a very wild little girl. I wonder how you would enjoy her for a
playmate. She has never been to school, although she is more than
seven years old, and doesn't know how to read, or even to tell her
letters; she has never seen a book but once, and she has never learned
to sew or to knit.

If you should try to play at paper dolls with her, she would make very
funny work with the dresses, I assure you. Since she never wore a gown
or bonnet or shoes herself, how should she know how to put them on to