NOTES IN THE BIG HOUSE.

CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES.

As the happy Christmastide drew near, there was much excitement and speculation among our little people. Some children, who were nearly quite well, became a little nervous lest they should be sent home before the great day arrived. It was hoped that the festive decorations, and the erection of a crib in each ward might be accomplished on Christmas Eve while the tiny inmates were asleep; but every movement was watched by more than one pair of bright eyes, and every now and again an excited little head would pop up from its pillow to take a survey of what was going on around. However, the little wide-awakes lost the wonderful pleasure and surprise enjoyed next morning by the drowsy heads, who, on awaking, found before their eyes a beautiful crib already lighted up with many-coloured tapers hung in the green branches, and saw hanging from all the gasaliers and pictures wonderful flowery wreaths and festoons of holly and ivy.

When all the convalescents were dressed, it was a touching sight to see them standing round the crib, singing their Christmas hymn in the early morning light. Then came breakfast, in itself a second surprise; for, instead of the usual cocoa, there was "real tea," a great treat to our little men and women.

As dinner hour in the Big House is so unfashionably early, we did not devote as much time and thought as other people do to that important part of the Christmas celebrations. Nevertheless, the little inmates did justice to their roast beef and potatoes, while looking forward to a luncheon of fruit and cakes and a lottery of toys in the afternoon. All the children who could be moved were put into the back ward, while preparations for the feast and lottery were being made in the front room; all, except "Beauty," who, trotting about in her little cap, superintended everything, and would not be kept out. Great was the impatience of the little mob in the back room while they were kept waiting, and equally great was their delight when they were admitted to the enchanting scene.

A strange little party they looked tumbling in, some on crutches, some with patches on their eyes, or with their heads bound up as if they had been in the wars, but all with happy faces, and all with merry voices, except our deaf and dumb child, who is having her little crooked foot made straight, and who, though she could not express her pleasure, was happy too in her own way with some nice toys spread before her on the bed. In the drawing of prizes every child was fortunate and all were pleased. After the feast was over the two cribs were once more lighted up, and the children sang again and again all the hymns they had ever learned or heard; and so Christmas Day ended as it began, with the sick children singing the praises of that Infant Saviour, to whose loving Heart in their suffering and their innocence they are doubly dear.

LEO sank away down through the heap of clouds, quite powerless to hold himself up any longer. He thought he was going to be smothered, but instead of that he found himself very comfortable in the middle of the cloud. There was a dew in it which oozed into his eyes and cured them both. This was very delightful, but it was not so pleasant when the cloud began to part and float off in pieces just as the other clouds had done, and as it seemed all clouds must keep on doing, no matter how steady they looked. This time the heap divided suddenly down the middle, and Leo rolled off and was just falling sheer down into nowhere, when he struck against a third Hour, another beautiful creature who was hovering in the air right beneath the cloud. She had white draperies hanging about her and bright hair spread over her shoulders, and was swinging a golden censer full of fire. Leo nearly fell head foremost into the censer, which would have been worse than dropping down nowhere, but the beautiful creature caught him by the curls on the top of his head and held him upright in the air.

"Oh, thank you!" cried Leo, "though it does hurt a little. It is better than slipping down through the air, and falling on a church steeple or something. I suppose you are another Hour ?"

"Yes, I belong to the morning," said the beautiful creature ; "and you had a narrow escape, I can tell you. What am I to do with you now, I wonder?"

"Oh!" said Leo, "you know the kind of thing I am, I see. I had to explain myself to the hours of the night and to the cloudman. They did not know anything about boys at all."

"That is because it is always dark when they are about, I belong to the day and can see down on the earth. I have often seen boys, and I know very well that it is very dangerous for them to be tumbling about in the sky, where nothing is solid enough for them to walk upon. My advice to you is to get down again to the earth as fast as you can."

"I'd rather see a little more since I am here," said Leo; "besides, I don't know how it could be done. You couldn't fly down with me, I suppose ?"

"No," said the Hour, "I couldn't indeed; any more than you can

walk on the air. I have no wings and I cannot leave the spot where I am placed. I am hung here like a lamp, and when I am finished I go out."

"And if you were to drop me now, what would happen to me?' asked Leo.

"You would be rubbed into powder by passing through the air," said the Hour. "Not a scrap of you would remain even to light on a church steeple. Perhaps you would be blown away in dust over the deserts; that is if the winds got hold of you. But why cannot you get down the way you came up?"

"The ash-trees carried me to the top of a mountain," said Leo, "and I crept up, but I have lost the place altogether, and I don't know where to look for it. I must shift for myself as well as I can until I find it again."

"Well," said the Hour, "there is only one thing I can do for you," and she turned her censer right upside down, so that all the fire fell out of it. "I will try and get you over to that opposite bank of clouds, and when you are there you must make the best of your time before they move. Get in here quickly," and she put Leo into the censer, doubled up like a ball. "Now I am going to fling you across, like a stone out of a sling. Are you afraid?"

"Not at all," said Leo; "but what will you do for your fire? Somebody will be angry with you, perhaps, for throwing it away." "Don't be uneasy about that," said the Hour. "I have only to fling the censer over at the sun and it will come back again full of fire. Are you ready now, for my arms are tired? One-two-three -and away !"

She gave the censer a tremendous swing, and then let it suddenly loose on its long chains, and Leo was tilted out of it with great violence and sent spinning across the sky quite to the other side of the horizon, where he lit on a great soft bed of cloud, and lay panting and winking, with his heart beating so that he could hardly breathe.

He came with such a shock upon the clouds that they heaved under him, and he feared that they were about to split right down, as the others had done. A deep groan came from beneath him, and Leo rolled over saying, "Oh, dear me, I hope I am not hurting anything!"

You have wakened me," said a voice, which Leo recognised as that of the cloudman.

"Oh," cried Leo, "you are here, are you?"

"I might say you are here, are you ?" said the voice.

"I thought you went to attend on the sun," said Leo. "I wish you would come out and let me see what shape you are in at present.” "I did attend on the sun," said the voice, "and that is why I am so tired and need a little rest."

"You are always taking little rests," said Leo. "Clouds must be very lazy things, I think. And pray what were you like when you followed the sun? I saw the procession, and I dare say I was looking at you." "I had to fly

"I was a wild horse," said the cloudman's voice.

along very fast, and I kicked a great deal, and so it is no wonder I am so lazy now."

"You had a gold mane and scarlet hoofs," said Leo. "You were a very grand fellow. And what became of the little cherub with the wings who was leading you all by a silver thread ?"

"How do I know where he is or what he is ?" said the voice. "But pray where were you, and how have you kept yourself alive here so long?"

"The hours have been very good to me," said Leo. "A great deal more civil than you. One of them flung me over here out of her censer or I should have been rubbed into powder through the air long ago."

"Oh ! is that what would have happened to you ?" said the voice. "I have been wondering since I saw you what was the worst that you had to fear. As you are not a cloud, you know, I could not imagine. And where were you while the procession was going on?"

"On a cloud at the other side of the sky," said Leo. "Does this wonderful procession take place every morning?"

"Of course it does," said the cloud voice. "The sun must be properly attended."

He is a very strange-looking old fellow," said Leo. “I never knew before that he had legs and arms. We don't know anything about that down on the earth. People think he is a world. They have very little idea that he can grin the way he does. I have often watched him out of our nursery-window coming out from behind the clouds in the mornings, but I never knew he walked. I could not have believed that there was such a crowd of beautiful people and horses and oxen and waggons and flowers and fruit and all kinds of fine things really waiting in the sky to receive him. I sometimes. have thought I saw pictures in the clouds a little like these things, but I did not think it was reality."

"I told you once before that you don't know much," said the cloud voice. "If you stay up here much longer, you shall see still queerer things than you have dreamed of yet."

"Shall I, indeed ?" said Leo; "then I hope I may be able to hold myself up. I am fond of seeing queer things. I wish you would come out now and let me see you again. What do you intend to be next ?"

"I don't know," said the cloud voice, "and it is better for you that I am inclined to stay where I am. If I came out of this heap, the whole would split up, as you have seen us do pretty often, and you would be in as bad a plight as ever. I wonder you don't learn a little sense by experience."

"I wonder I don't," said Leo; "I might have remembered; but I am very much obliged to you for thinking of me."

"Hold your tongue, then," said the cloud voice, "and let me go to sleep." And Leo said no more, but began to gaze curiously around the sky.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SUMMER-CLOUD CHILDREN.

THE sky was now like the most exquisite blue sea, with golden islands scattered about in it, and Leo shaded his eyes with his hands to gaze across at these islands, which were covered with woods and villages and seemed to have people moving about on them. The houses were thatched with gold, he thought, and the walls were white tinged with pink. The trees glittered as if made of gold, and there seemed to be animals among them and birds and flowers. Leo spent a long time studying these islands, with his shaded eyes intently fixed on them, and he became convinced at last that he saw children at play.

"How I wish I were over there," thought Leo. "It would be much better fun than lying here in these sleepy clouds. I see one of the islands like a village, with a long street and gardens, and a castle with three towers, and a church, and a whole fleet of little boats in the blue bay by the golden shore. I am sure I see little children running in and out of the houses, and strange large animals walking about in the fields. Oh, dear, how I wish I had even a telescope!"

Just as Leo, spoke a great shoal of little cloud things came drifting along in the blue sky sea beside his hand. There were little fishes and fern-leaves, and slippers and fans and long grasses, and a great many other odds and ends made of bits of gold cloud, which looked as if they had just been swept out of the door of some genii of the sky who had been tidying up his house and garden. Among these things were a pair of little wings-beautiful feathery white wings all tinged and tipped with gold, and Leo said to himself, as he saw them coming towards him :

"Oh, now, if these were only real wings that I could fly with!" and he stretched out his hands as they went past and caught them. Strange to say they did not melt away from him as the other cloud things always did, but seemed to turn into real wings while he looked at them. Finding this, he tried to fasten them on his shoulders, and was astonished to feel them fastening themselves on and remaining as if they had grown there.

"Good gracious!" said Leo, "perhaps I can fly !" and he made a little movement upwards, just only to try if this were possible. The next moment he found himself hovering in the air with his wings spread, exactly as if he had been changed into a bird. He flew up and flew down, and flapped his wings, and could scarcely believe his senses for delight.

He flew down through the beautiful blue air, and tried to see the earth, and his father's house and the trees and gardens, but it was all such a long way off that he could distinguish nothing. He heard a loud sound of singing, coming nearer to him every moment, and saw a lark soaring towards him so very fast that it struck against his breast before it had time to see him.

"I beg your pardon," cried Leo, "but I have only just got on