Tom Burroughs led Minnie Wall to the head of the set, other children rushed for places, Mrs. Legrange seated herself at the piano, and the merry dance went on; but, when it was over, Minnie Wall returned to Mrs. Legrange’s side, followed by two or three more, begging her to play the cachuca, and see how nicely ’Toinette could dance it.  Half unwillingly the mother complied, and found really astonished as she noticed the graceful evolutions and accurate time of the child, who went through the intricate motions of the dance without a single mistake, and, at the close, dropped her little courtesy, and kissed her little hand, with the grace and self-possession of a danseuse.

The children crowded around her with a clamor of delight and surprise; but the mother, anxiously watching her darling’s flushed face and sparkling eyes, whispered to her cousin, as he playfully applauded,—­

“Oh, don’t, Tom!  The child will be utterly ruined by so much flattery and admiration.  I feel very badly about it, I assure you.”

“But she is absolutely so bewitching!  How can we help admiring her?” replied he, laughing.

“No:  but it is wrong; it won’t do,” persisted Mrs. Legrange.  “Just see how excited and happy she looks because they are all admiring her!  You must help me to check it, Tom.  Come, you are so famous for stories, tell them one about a peacock, or something,—­a story with a moral about being vain, you know, only not too pointed.”

“A pill with a very thick sugar-coat,” suggested Mr. Burroughs, and, as his cousin nodded, continued, in a louder voice,—­

“A story, ladies and gentlemen!  Who will listen to the humble attempts of an unfortunate improvisator?”

“Yes, yes, a story; let us have a story!” shouted with one accord both girls and boys; and with ’Toinette perched upon his knee, and the rest grouped about him, Cousin Tom began the story of the children of Merrigoland.

CHAPTER IV.

The children of Merrigoland.

Once upon a time, in the pleasant country of Merrigoland, all the fathers and mothers, the uncles and aunts, the grandpas and grandmas, in fact, all the grown-up people of every sort, were invited to the governor’s house to spend a week; and all the cooks and chambermaids, and nurses and waiters, and coachmen and gardeners, in Merrigoland, were invited to go and wait upon them:  so there was nobody left at home in any of the houses but the children; not even the babies; for their mothers had carried them in their arms to the governor’s house.

“What fun!” shouted the children.  “We can do every thing we have a mind to now.”

“We’ll eat all the cake and pies and preserves and candies in the country,” said Patty Pettitoes.

“We’ll swing on all the gates, and climb all the cherry-trees, and chase all the roosters, and play ball against the parlor-windows,” said Tom Tearcoat.