Leigh wanted.

Mamma was so pleased, and so was Mary; though I do not think mamma would have been quite so pleased if she had known what Leigh had in his head about the reins. Then mamma went to the confectioner's, where she bought some very nice little cakes for Mary to take home for the nursery tea, and, as she thought Mary looked a little tired and must be beginning to feel hungry, she asked for a glass of milk for her and a bun, and then she put Mary on a chair close up to the counter, where she could reach the milk. And then, just as she was going to pay for what she had bought, poor mamma started.

“Oh, dear!" she said, "where is my little bag with my purse in it? I must have left it somewhere; I was carrying so many parcels.'

"Mamma, dear," said Mary, "you had it at the reins' shop. I sawed it in your hand.”

"Oh, I'm so glad!" said mamma.

"Then it'll

be all right. I'll run back for it. You finish your milk and bun, dear, and I will come for you as quickly as I can."

Mary did not quite like waiting alone, but she did not want to trouble her mother, so she said, "Very well, mamma dear."

Her milk and bun did not take long to finish, but she sat on still on the high chair, partly because she thought her mamma would look for her there, partly because she could not get down alone, and she was too shy to ask to be lifted off. But mamma did not come as quickly as Mary hoped, though the time seemed longer to her than it really was.

In a few minutes she heard the door open, and she looked up gladly, thinking it was her mamma; but it was not. Instead of mamma in came a rather fat lady, with two boys and a girl. The lady had a red face, and they all talked very loudly.

"Now, what will you have, my loveys?" said the lady. "Puffs, cheesecakes, macaroons?"

The three children pushed up to the counter

and began helping themselves. It was not a

large shop, and they crushed against Mary, who was growing very uncomfortable.

“Dear, dear,” said the fat lady, “I am 'ot!” and she fanned herself with her handkerchief. "Haven't you got a chair for me?"

The shopwoman looked at the girl who had seated herself on the only chair besides Mary's

one.

"I dare say Miss isn't tired," she said; "won't you give the lady your chair?”

But the girl would not move.

"No," she said; "that child isn't eating anything. She can give her chair. Put her down, Fred."

And the bigger of the boys lifted Mary roughly down from her perch before the shopwoman could interfere, and then they all burst out laughing, and Mary, whose face had been getting whiter and whiter, rushed to the open door and ran with all her might down the street.

CHAPTER XI.

NURSERY TEA.

I DARE say it was silly of Mary to be so frightened; but then, you know, she was only a very little girl, and she was not used to rude or rough ways.

"Mamma, mamma!" she cried as she ran along. And she did not even think or know which way she was going. But the town was not a big one, not like London, where her papa had been left alone in the toy-shop—and the street was quiet. Several people noticed the prettily-dressed little girl running so fast, the tears rolling down her face.

"She's lost her way, poor dear," said one woman, standing at the door of a greengrocer's shop.

"She's been bitten by a dog," said another.

But nobody did anything till, luckily, Mary flew past the draper's where she had been with

her mamma; one of the young men in the shop was reaching something out of the window and saw her. He called to the draper-Mr. Mitcham

and Mr. Mitcham, who was a kind man and had little girls of his own, hurried after Mary and soon caught her up, for she was getting .very tired now. Her legs were shaking sadly, and her breath seemed to choke her, and her heart,— oh, how her poor heart was thumping — it seemed to come right up into her ears.

"Are you looking for your mamma, my dear?" said Mr. Mitcham. He was rather out of breath himself though he had only run a short way, for he was a fat little man, and he seldom took more exercise than walking about his shop.

"Zes, zes!" cried Mary, who went back to her baby talk when she was unhappy or frightened. "Her is goned away, and the naughty boy pulled me off my chair, and-oh, oh, where is my mamma goned?"

Mr. Mitcham, could not make out what was the matter, but, luckily, just at that moment her mamma came round the corner of the street. She