foremost. His mother happened to be looking round at the time, and did not see Tom's disaster. He was stirred into the batter, which was put on the fire to boil. But the water soon began to grow hot, and Tom, feeling very uncomfortable, began to kick and plunge with all his might, and his mother who had stirred him round and round, in the idea that he was something in the nature of a lump of suet (for, as I have said, Tom, being covered with the batter, could not be seen), wondered what caused her pudding to seem to be dancing a reel at a great rate. an entirely unaccountable pudding.

Never was such The good woman

could not think what made her pudding go "bump-bump!" against the top and sides of the pot in such a strange impatient way; and she popped off the lid to see. Greatly surprised was the good woman, I can tell you, when she beheld the pudding bobbing up and down in the pot, dancing a sort of hornpipe all by itself. She could scarcely believe her eyes, and was very much frightened at the antics of this remarkable pudding. For, you see, it was not even a yeast dumpling, so that there was no excuse for its rising; and she had never intended it for a hasty pudding, although it turned out such a fast one. "Dearie me!" cried the dame, "whatever am I to do with this!" She thought about it,

and at last fancied that the pudding must be bewitched, and accordingly determined to give it away to the first person who came by, and who cared to take it off her hands. You will think this was not very generous of the good woman, to part with what she did not care to keep in the house; but I know a good many boys and girls who want to be thought liberal merely because they give away the plaything they are tired of, or the old broken doll with one eye which has been lying about in the lumber-room for months. Here's a little remark by the way-If you want to be really kind, dear children, give away something of which you will feel the loss.

Well, Tom's mother had not to wait long for an opportunity to show how liberal she was; for, & quarter of an hour after, a travelling tinker came by, crying, "Pots and kettles to mend, oh!—pots and kettles to mend, ol:!" Tom's mother beckoned him in, and gave him the pudding. The tinker was glad enough to have such a fine batter pudding for his dinner, and he thanked the good woman, put it in his wallet, and trudged merrily onwards. Some say that Tom's mother made him mend a frying-pan for her in return for the bewitched pudding; but I do not believe that, for it would have been mean. The tinker had not gone far before he felt a funny sort of motion-"bump-bump-bump!"-in his wallet. At first he thought a rat must have got in there, and opened the bag to see; but, to his horror, he heard a voice from inside the pudding crying out most distinctly, "Hullo! hullo! hul-1-1-0-o!" and there was the pudding moving in his bag, and two little feet were sticking out of it, and wriggling about in the funniest way possible.

At this the tinker stared till his eyes were almost starting out of his head, for he had never seen a pudding with feet growing out of it before. Then the voice cried, "Come,

I say!-you let me ou-u-ut!-you let me ou-u-ut!" and the pudding began to kick and dance in a most alarming manner.

The tinker was horribly frightened, and he certainly granted the request made, as he thought, by the pudding: he not only "let" it out, but "flung" it out of his wallet right over the hedge, and took to his heels, and ran as hard as he could for more than a mile without once stopping to look behind him.

As for the pudding, it fell into a dry ditch with a great "splodge!" It was broken into five or six pieces by the fall, and Tom crept out of the batter pudding in rather a battery, if not a battered, condition. He managed to get home, creep

NOTE.-From" A Comment upon the History of Tom Thumb," 1711. Thumb stories are common in German and Danish, and the English tale comprises much that is found in the Northern versions. Several of our common nursery tales are remains of ancient myths. Sir W. Scott mentions the Danish popular history of Svend Tomling, analysed by Nierup, a man no bigger than a thumb, who would be married to a woman 3 ells long." According to popular tradition, Tom

ing along as a fly creeps when it has just been rescued out of a cream-jug. His mother was only too glad to see him; and she washed the batter off him with a great deal of trouble, and put him to bed.

A short time after, Tom went with his mother to milk the cow; that is to say, his mother was to milk the cow, and Tom to make observations and remarks upon the subject. As it was rather a windy day, his mother very prudently tied her little son to a thistle with a bit of thread, for fear he should be blown over and over. But the cow, in cropping up the thistles, happened to choose the very one to which our little friend was tied, and all at once he found himself in a great red cavern, with two rows of white pillars going "champchamp!" all round him in a very alarming manner. Tom began to cry out with fright when he saw where he was, and roared at the top of his little voice for his mother.

"Where are you, my dear son-my own Tommy?" cried the good woman, in terrible alarm.

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Here, mother!" screamed Tom in reply; "here, in the red cow's mouth!"

The mother began weeping and wringing her hands, for she thought her dear little boy would be crushed into a shapeless mass; but the cow, being very much surprised at having met with a noisy thistle, opened her mouth wide, and dropped out Master Tom upon the grass. His mother was only too glad to clap him up in her apron and run home with him.

"It

Thumb died at Lincoln, and was buried in the Cathedral. was my good fortune," says Dr. Wagstaffe," some time ago, to have the library of a schoolboy committed to my charge, where, among other undiscovered valuable authors, I pitched upon Tom Thumb and Tom Hickathrift, authors indeed more proper to adorn the shelves of Bodley or the Vatican, than to be confined to the retirement and obscurity of a private study. I have perused the first of these with