"I don't want cakes," said Janet, peevishly. And in a few minutes she did run away. When

no one was looking, she slipped out at the door, past the poppies and asters, down to the stream,

and getting quickly into the little boat, floated away alone.

She tried to believe she was going to have a very delightful time, all by herself and free as the air, but it was hard to drive from her mind the vision of patient little Prue doing all the dishes alone, and after that the sweeping and dusting. Somehow it seemed to her as if the very stream understood it all, and as if the cat-tails on the bank whispered to the rushes that here was the little girl who had run away from helping her mother.

"But I ought to be out of doors," said Janet, "fresh air is good for people."

She almost expected Prue to answer her when she spoke, she was so used to having her sister at her side all the time; but to-day there was no answer, unless—could it really be?—the waves rippling by the boat's side seemed to plash and bubble "Selfish Janet! Selfish Janet!"

"I don't think I will go very far to-day," said Janet to herself, as the little boat floated down through the meadows after passing the two farms, which now lay between her and home. There was a pear-tree growing in the meadows a short distance from the water's edge, and pears could be seen, which looked most temptingly ripe, on the lower branches.

"I'll just step ashore a minute, and gather some to take to mother and Prue," thought Janet, “and then I will go right home.'

She steered the boat against the bank, and springing out, ran to the tree, where she soon gathered her apron full of delicious pears. But when she turned toward the stream again, expecting to sail home at once, what was her dismay and terror to see the boat almost out of sight, floating down the stream, and the next moment disappearing. "Oh! I have lost it!" she cried. "Who knows

but it is gone forever! my pretty, pretty boat!

Oh! it is all my fault,

Now I must walk all the way home, and how tiresome that will be!"

She started on foot through the deep grass and reeds of the meadow, where the ground was so uncertain that in five minutes her shoes were wet through and covered with mud, and yet she was not half-way over it. She pushed on with many a stumble, and at last, feeling utterly forlorn, reached the wall beyond which lay Mr. Green's farm, where there was different ground. It was no longer wet and marshy, but it was so full of stones and stubble that it hurt her feet every step she took.

She was now so tired and faint that she ate two or three of the pears to refresh herself, but the

stones had cut her shoes, and her knees were bruised with the falls she had had, so by the time. she reached the next field she was wholly exhausted.

"Oh! how naughty I have been!" she said, sobbing, "and this is my punishment! I wish I was with Prue, setting away the cups and saucers in mother's cool pantry! But now I have lost our beautiful boat, and I am too tired to go another step. Oh! I am so very, very sorry I ran away!"

She was sitting on the low wall as she said this, and as she swung one of her aching feet for a little relief, it chanced now and then to hit the nearest stone.

"I'm coming! Here I am!" said a plaintive, cracked voice; "why didn't you call me before? I was just digging in my garden when you rapped." And out from behind the stone popped the figure of the little green man.

"I didn't rap!" said Janet; "I only hit my foot."

"You must not play jokes on me!" exclaimed the little man, reproachfully. "But if you don't

need me, I will go back to my garden,"

"Oh! don't go," cried Janet, eagerly, "I want somebody to talk to. And I should need your help

if there was anything you could do, but there isn't. I have lost the boat; it is gone forever; it is out on the ocean by this time, and I must walk all the way home over these rough fields."

"How did it happen?" asked the little man, fixing his keen gaze upon her.

"I was very naughty," confessed Janet, "I ran away and left my sister to do all the work alone." "Oh! I know all about that," he interrupted. "But she had help, my wife stepped in and helped How did you lose the boat, that's what I want

her.

to know?"

"I just went ashore a minute to get these pears,' she said, showing him what was in her apron, "and I never thought to tie the boat, and now it is lost forever!"

"I knew it! I knew it!" he exclaimed. "You've forgotten the word again, and here I've had to leave all my work!"

"I am very sorry, I am sure," said Janet, sadly; "but you see I was on the land, so the word wouldn't be of any use. I haven't forgotten it at all, it is Turn, stream, turn!'"

"You had better have said it an hour ago," he replied, shading his eyes with his hand as he looked intently down the river.