set Patience, Hope, and Courage to work at it, I believe you'll get it done in ten minutes."

Wynnie smiled. "Do you think so, auntie?"

"I do indeed. Now, suppose I go down to mamma for a quarter of an hour, and come back again at the end of that time, do you think the fairies will have got through their labours by then?"

"Well, we'll see," said Wynnie, setting Goodwill, Courage, and Method to work at once.

Miss Lesley smiled and went away.

IV.

"WHAT have you been about all this while?” asked Mrs. Lesley of her sister, when she rejoined her in the drawing-room. "Have you been doing Wynnie's lessons for her?"

"No, indeed, I assure you. I have only been introducing her to a few little fairies of my acquaintance."

"Like the fairy godmother and aunt that you are,” said Mrs. Lesley, smiling.

"I should like to be one to the child, if I could," was Aunt Louie's answer.

A quarter of an hour later Miss Lesley again put her head into the study.

Wynnie sprang towards her.

"Oh, auntie," she cried, "I must have had ever so many of the fairies here, for the sum's come right, and I've written écrire out without splotching it a bit. And now I may come down, mayn't I?"

"Yes, mamma says so, if you've finished your work. But I hope you've given my friends the fairies an invitation for to-morrow morning."

"Oh yes, that I have-you dear auntie. What a good thing it is to have an auntie who has fairy friends!" cried Wynnie, as she skipped lightly down the stairs by Miss Lesley's side, all brightness and smiles.

The troubles of childhood, heavy as they may be at the time, are happily not lasting. Behind the April storm-clouds lives the sweet spring sunshine, and on the slanting April sunbeams, and through the patter of the April showers, the fairy people find their way to earth.

MIDSUMMER MAY.

CHAPTER I.

A PARTY IN PROSPECT.

ECIL! will you leave off? Cecil!!" cries May

"CECI

Berkeley, in a tone of extreme annoyance.

The brother and sister are standing, one on each side of a croquet hoop, on the lawn at Mwyngil.

It is a lovely summer's evening, and the air is fragrant with the scent of roses and mignonette, newly-cut grass, and freshly-watered flower-beds.

May is putting up the croquet hoops, or trying to do so. Cecil is helping her after a fashion peculiar to himself that is to say, as fast as she gets them

straight and into position, he puts them crooked and out of position.

To-morrow, Midsummer-day, the 24th of June, will be May's birthday—her tenth-and she is going to have a party. So all this afternoon she has been in a state of the greatest possible excitement, thinking about, and making preparations for, the great

occasion.

Among other things, of course the croquet hoops must be set up. That is most important, May thinks.

But the setting up of croquet hoops is at any time rather fatiguing work, and under present circumstances, May certainly finds it no easy task.

Her face, as she raises it to her brother, is flushed both with vexation and with the exertion of stooping.

"I tell you it's not a bit of good putting them up to-night, May," he says.

May looks at him, her eyes very bright.

"But I want to put them up-and I will put them up, Cecil!" she says.

Cecil laughs.

"Oh, of course you'll have your

own way, Miss Obstinate—if you can get it: I know

that. But you may as well put them straight, when