Polly

d his were adored by the villagers, for the Maybrights had lived in the neighborhood of the little village of Tyrsley Dale for many generations. Dr. Maybright's father had ministered to the

ted village on the borders of one of our great southern moors should have thought that

t opened her bright blue-black eyes; in this house Dr. Maybright's eight children had lived happily, and enjoyed all the sunshine of the happiest of happy childhoods to the full. They were all high-spirited and fearless; each child had a certain amount of individuality. Perhaps Pol

es of sons; and she was so pretty and so merry, and in such ecstasies over a picnic, and so childishly exultant when Helen, or

ed to obtain the confidences of all the children; she thoroughly understoo

h life in a city would have given him, he was a very clever physician, and many of his brothers in the profession prophesied eminence for him whenever he chose to come forward and take it. Dr. Maybright was often absent from home all day long, sometimes

say; or, "What bad toothache Peter Simpkins has to-

to join in their games, or to be sympathetic over their joys or their woes. They reverenced him much, they loved him well, but he was too

s, more hopelessly disreputable, more defiant of all authority, except mother's. Polly was as bad as her brothers in this respect, but the other five girls were docility itself compar

d even the villagers spoke of most of them as "wondrous rampageous!" Bu

em, the sweetest and most healthy-minded children in the world. Let them alone, and don

ed in tears; but was generally overtaken half-way up the avenue by two small figures, nearly throttled by two pairs of repentant little arms, while eager lips

y-until the

to the exultant, radiant child at the close. Something about her putting away some of the childish things, and taking up the gentler and nobler ways of first young girlhood now. She thought in an almost undefined way of mother's words as she held the fluttering thrushes to her lips and kissed their downy br