NAUGHTY ZAY.

Once upon a time there was a dear little naughty girl, not bad, she would not have been so dear had she been really bad, but just naughty sometimes, and I must confess "sometimes" came pretty often. She had all sorts of loving scolding names, such as "precious torment," "darling bother," and she kept her poor dear grandmother on a continuous trot to see what mischief she was in, and frightened her mother (who thought everybody Zay, although he had told her that "that was not her name at all; she had been baptized Salome; and Zay was a name she had no right to whatever." Nor can I begin to tell you the times I have exhausted all my strength putting her sturdy little self into the closet, and then standing first on one foot, then on the other, until I was ready to drop, listening at the keyhole for the first small sob of repentance.

Things had gone wrong with our naughty little Zay this morning. Mary, the good old cook, who had been in the house years before Zay was born, had actually refused to let her make any more mud-pies on her kitchen window; and mamma and grandma had sided with the enemy.

Zay was a little dumpling of a girl, with hard round cheeks like red apples, fat dimpled arms, and such wide-open eyes, and she looked very funny now as she drew herself up to her fullest height, which was not much of a height after all, brushed off her pretty blue dress, shook down her clean ruffled apron, and addressed us all in very solemn tones:

resulted, and I am never going to live here anymore! I'll go 'way; clear off in the woods! And then I guess you'll all be sorry! Mary need never make any more scrambled eggs for breakfast, cause" (she almost broke down at the bare thought of so direful a catastrophe), "cause there'll never be any chil'en to eat 'em anymore! And then I guess grandpa will be sorry when he comes home tired, and doesn't have his s'ippers all yeddy!"

"O," said her mamma, gravely, "you are going right off, are you, before dinner?"

"Yes, wight st'ait away, now! I'll go get my hat."

Down stairs the quick feet pattered to the hall-closet where the little sun hat hung, always ready for the garden. Soon she was back, and held her chin up with great composure for grandma to tie the strings.

The dear grandmother quietly laid her fine sewing down beside her on the sofa. "Is my little girl going away off by herself in the woods?"

"Yes, miles and mileses!"

"And what will you do when you get hungry?"

"Why, I'm going to take all my money," forthwith going to a drawer in the old-fashioned book-case, and taking out a diminutive porte-monnaie, which con

I, sitting in an easy chair, just recovered from a long illness, suggested, "But, Zay, you might want something besides crackers. I know a little girl who is very fond of 'drum-sticks' and 'wish-bones'!"

"I can eat bears and wolves. I can make gravy, and," she added, "I'm going to take grandpa's gun wif me."

"Very well," answered her mamma, going to grandfather's closet and bringing out the gun, which was twice as large as the child.

There she stood before us—a little blue-eyed girl with a demure sun-hat shading a very resolute and, as yet, untroubled face, the gun held up tight against her with one fat dimpled hand, while from the other dangled the little purse.

"I'm all yeddy now, so good-bye ev'ybody," she said at last.

"Good-bye," said gentle grandma, holding up the little face to kiss the firm red lips. "I am afraid I shall miss my little girl to-night when I want the red stand drawn out for the drop light; and I'm sure grandpa will need his slippers."

"I think," said she, "if you intend to reach the woods before dark you should start at once, for it is almost two o'clock now."

"Good-bye ev'ybody," said Zay again.

"And," said Lita, "I'll carry the gun down and open the front gate for you."

Bravely the child marched out of the room, out of the front door and gate. There Lita handed her the gun; but after trying several times to walk with it, she told Lita that she didn't know as she should care for any wolf wish-bone with her butter crackers, and asked her to take the gun back in the house, and then she banged the gate, hoping Mary saw her, with an air of importance, and pattered off on a fast little dog-trot down the street.

Meanwhile we were all watching her behind the blinds.

"Don't lose sight of her," said mamma, "but don't let her see you!"

This is what Lita saw. A sturdy little figure walking steadily onward, never looking back. At length it stops, opens the little purse, counts its money, but never noting that in the trouble with the clasps the three little coins fall, like three silver rain drops, to

Ah, the horrors of poverty! Lita understands the poor little irresolute figure. No money means no butter crackers, and no butter crackers means despair. The little steps come homeward. The blue eyes are bent on the ground. She does not know that grandpa has come quietly up behind her, and found each little silver piece.

The little rebel appeared in the hall just as dinner was carried in. There was a most savory odor of fricassee. Grandma and mamma and Lita were just entering the dining room.

"Well," Zay calmly announced, "I 'cluded not to go till after dinner."

"Is that so?" quietly replied her mother. "But you might better have gone on. Any little girl who wants to leave a nice home because she can't have her own way, needn't look for any dinner here! I expected you to dine on butter crackers and bears."

"I like chicken, I do," said proud little Zay with appealing eyes, but no tears; "and then I lost all my pennies!"

In vain did the tender hearted grandma pull wish to teach my child a lesson."

Little sun-hat and empty porte-monnaie put away, quietly she seated herself on the sofa opposite me, with two little fat feet hanging dangling down. Dignity kept her silent, and amusement mingled with pity made me so.

This state of things lasted for some moments, while the dainties were diminishing from my plate. Every mouthful was wistfully watched. At length with grave old-fashioned face, she asked, "Are you sorry for beggar chil'en, Aunty?"

"Very sorry indeed," I replied with composure.

Then with a tremor in the voice:

"Aunty, if you saw a little child in the street a starvin' to death for some bread and butter wif jelly on it, wouldn't you give her some?"

I shook my head. Another pause, and then with little fat hands clasped, and voice full of sobs, poor little Zay cried out, "Oh, Aunty, if you saw a little girl starvin' to death for sponge cake, wouldn't you give her some?"

All her fortitude was gone. She burst into tears. She laid her head down on the sofa and sobbed.

"Oh, oh! and they had fricasseed chicken, with Mary's nice toast under it; and you have sponge-cake and wine-jelly; and I haven't nuffin; there isn't one single butter cracker in the house!"

At this climax of misery the house resounded with her lamentations, in which my tears would mingle; but fortunately the dear grand-parents soon appeared to comfort their darling. And so, somehow, up on grandpa's lap it became easier to see how naughty it was to annoy good old Mary, and how ungrateful it was to wish to run away from home. And pardons were begged and kisses were given, and the three little silver pieces crept back into the tiny porte-monnaie, and Zay had some of Mary's nice toast with lots of gravy, and a drum-stick and a wish-bone.

Zay is a young lady now, and I presume when she reads this story she will pout and blush, and the more because it is every word true.