Nine Little Goslings

WHEN a little girl is six and a little boy is six, they like pretty much the same things and enjoypretty much the same games. She wears an apron, and he a jacket and trousers, but they are bothequally fond of running races, spinning tops, flying kites, going down hill on sleds, and making anoise in the open air. But when the little girl gets to be eleven or twelve, and to grow thin and long, so that every two months a tuck has to be let down in her frocks, then a great difference becomesvisible. The boy goes on racing and whooping and comporting himself generally like a young colt ina pasture; but she turns quiet and shy, cares no longer for rough play or exercise, takes droll littlesentimental fancies into her head, and likes best the books which make her cry. Almost all girls havea fit of this kind some time or other in the course of their lives; and it is rather a good thing to haveit early, for little folks get over such attacks more easily than big ones. Perhaps we may live to see theday when wise mammas, going through the list of nursery diseases which their children have had, will wind up triumphantly with, "Mumps, measles, chicken-pox, -and they are all over with 'AmyHerbert, ' 'The Heir of Redclyffe, ' and the notion that they are going to be miserable for the rest oftheir lives!"Sometimes this odd change comes after an illness when a little girl feels weak and out of sorts, and does not know exactly what is the matter. This is the way it came to Johnnie Carr, a girl whomsome of you who read this are already acquainted with. She had intermittent fever the year after hersisters Katy and Clover came from boarding-school, and was quite ill for several weeks. Everybodyin the house was sorry to have Johnnie sick. Katy nursed, petted, and cosseted her in the tenderestway. Clover brought flowers to the bedside and read books aloud, and told Johnnie interestingstories. Elsie cut out paper dolls for her by dozens, painted their cheeks pink and their eyes blue, andmade for them beautiful dresses and jackets of every color and fashion. Papa never came in withoutsome little present or treat in his pocket for Johnnie. So long as she was in bed, and all these nicethings were doing for her, Johnnie liked being ill very much, but when she began to sit up and godown to dinner, and the family spoke of her as almost well again, then a time of unhappiness set in.The Johnnie who got out of bed after the fever was not the Johnnie of a month before. There weretwo inches more of her for one thing, for she had taken the opportunity to grow prodigiously, assick children often do. Her head ached at times, her back felt weak, and her legs shook when shetried to run about. All sorts of queer and disagreeable feelings attacked her. Her hair had fallen outduring the fever so that Papa thought it best to have it shaved close. Katy made a pretty silk-linedcap for her to wear, but the girls at school laughed at the cap, and that troubled Johnnie very much.Then, when the new hair grew, thick and soft as the plumy down on a bird's wing, a fresh afflictionset in, for the hair came out in small round rings all over her head, which made her look like a baby.Elsie called her "Curly," and gradually the others adopted the name, till at last nobody used anyother except the servants, who still said "Miss Johnnie." It was hard to recognize the old Johnnie, square and sturdy and full of merry life, in poor, thin, whining Curly, always complaining ofsomething, who lay on the sofa reading story-books, and begging Phil and Dorry to let her alone, not to tease her, and to go off and play by the