[The Editor requests that all inquiries and replies intended for insertion in LITTLE FOLKS have the words Questions and Answers" written on the left-hand top corner of the envelope containing them.]

PRIZE COMPETITIONS, &c.

CLARA. [Puzzles sent by readers of LITTLE FOLKS will continue to be inserted after this month, in addition to the Prize Puzzles; but it is well to bear in mind that only a limited number can appear in each number.-ED.]

ALISTAIR.-[A notice as to the Silver Medal of the LITTLE FOLKS Legion of Honour appears on page 52 of this number.-ED.]

LITERATURE.

JACK. A Christmas charade appears in "SNOW TIME AND GLOW TIME," the LITTLE FOLKS Annual for 1882.ED.]

LITTLE DUB-DUBBY wishes to know if any readers of LITTLE FOLKS can tell her the author of this verse

"Let dusky masses steal in dubious night

Along the leaguered walls and bristling bank

Of the armed river; while with straggling light
The stars peep through the vapour dim and dank."

HORLEY asks if any one can say where the following lines are to be found

"I live for those who love me,

Whose hearts are kind and true, For the heaven that smiles above me, For the good that I can do."

GAMES AND AMUSEMENTS.

LILIAN Writes, in answer to WHITE VIOLET, that spellicans are little thin sticks of wood, or ivory, with a hook of the same for each player, and the game is played as follows:-One of the players throws down the spellicans in a heap, and then tries to disengage one with the hook, and if he succeeds in completely freeing it he may go on playing, but if he shake any of the spellicans his turn passes to the next. Whoever gets out the most spellicans wins the game. Answers also received from MABELLE, W. BLIZARD, NANCY, VIOLET BARKER, TREFOIL, and SYBIL.

KING CHARLES and a WELSH BOY would like to know the rules of the game of "Go-bang," and of "Mother Goose and the Golden Egg."

WORK.

JUDGE YOUFER would like to know the way to make a pair of baby's gloves.

COOKERY.

BO-PEEP writes in answer to JocoUDA'S inquiry how to make brandy-snaps :-" Rub the yellow part of a fresh lemon upon some lump sugar. When dry crush it to powder, and, with half a pound of sugar mix half a pound

of fine flour, two eggs thoroughly whisked, and three ounces of dissolved butter. Make them up into a paste, and add, if required, a table-spoonful of thick cream. Drop the batter on buttered baking-tins from the point of a fork, and bake in a slow oven for twenty minutes or more. The jumbles are done enough when crisp and lightly browned. Cost, rod." Answers also received from EDITH M. ARMES and E. M. M. EVANS.

CUCKOO would be glad to know how to make gelatine drops and burnt almonds.

GENERAL.

W. C. WARD asks if any reader of LITTLE FOLKS can give him a recipe for making French polish, to be used on walnut-wood fretwork.

MARY E. DE BUISSERET writes in answer to FANNY C. GAMBLE'S question concerning the drying of flowers, that "they inevitably lose part of their colour. To avoid this as much as possible she must choose full-blown specimens, leaving them for a fortnight under a heavy press completely untouched." Answers also received from VIOLET BARKER, VANITY, and TREFOIL.

EDMUND asks if any one can tell him how to make an Eolian harp, to put in a window where there is a good draught, without going to very much expense.

ISABEL would be glad if any readers of LITTLE FOLKS can tell her how to grow acorns in a dish or bottle, as a

room ornament.

KITTY says she has found a great many shells on the sea-shore, and would be pleased if any one could tell her how to stick them on boxes or make other use of them."

POPPY wants to know if any of the readers of LITTLE FOLKS could tell her how to preserve hips and haws. She says when left to dry they shrivel up.

NATURAL HISTORY.

(With Answers by the Editor of the "Live Stock Journal and Fanciers' Gazette."

FREDA wishes to know how many years canaries generally live; also if old ones should have any special treatment.[A bird is pretty old at six years, but some live much longer. They want no special treatment, but only special care, to see they are not seized with rheumatism, bronchitis, or other diseases of old age. They are most sensitive to bad air or changes of temperature.]

SUNFLOWER asks for hints on keeping and taming dormice; also what they eat besides nuts, and if they ever want anything to drink.-[Nothing but long patience and love can tame these animals. Their natural food consists of nuts, apples, and dry seeds, avoiding hempseed, except a grain now and then, and only a little bread and milk. Remember that they should always be allowed to make a nest and to hybernate in the winter months of the year.]

dead, it seemed to him almost like a piece of cruel news, and a grief that had just happened; and yet he had believed Donough to have been dead for years, while he had been really alive till only a short time before, and if Donough was dead, he had left him this sweet pretty legacy, a little daughter of his own, to love and take care of. And now the child had won over his affections already, partly, no doubt, by her own charming little ways, but in some measure, he felt convinced, because she was Donough's child, the child of his own dear brother. At breakfast-time he told Bridget to bring the little girl to him, who danced in, fresh and fair, and rosy as her name, sprang on to his knee, lifted her mouth to his, and said, with the utmost condescension, "You may kiss me." Then she settled herself to the table, and pointing first to one thing, and then to another, informed him that he might give her this, and that "Rose liked that."

But with regard to the young lady's diet, Mrs. Bridget stood by, firm and inexorable. She scorned the idea of a cutlet or egg as quite improper for a "wee child's" breakfast-as improper as jam, pure and simple, proposed by her "puir master" in his ignorance, would have been for her supper. Bread-and-milk for breakfast, bread-and-milk for supper, meat, chop, or roast chicken for dinner, with plenty of "potatoes "-this was her one idea, and if only idea can be held on the subject, it was not at all a bad one. So a good basin of breadand-milk was placed before little Rose, and eaten up by her with no signs of discontent whatever.

"Will you take Rose back to the ship after breakfast?" she asked.

"No, no," replied Mr. Burke, "Rose will stay with Uncle Archie."

Would

He watched her nervously as he spoke. the name Uncle Archie be a strange or a familiar sound to her? Had Donough talked to her of him? Surely in sending her home to him he had told her of the uncle to whom she was being sent? But the memories of children of four years old are not retentive. Anything that little Rose had been told of Uncle Archie had slipped out of her mind as if it had never entered it; she only smiled at him, showing the white teeth in her mouth as she did so, and said, with her accustomed gay complacency, "What's Uncle Archie?"

Mr. Burke felt disappointed.

"I am Uncle Archie," he said. never tell you about me?"

"Did papa

She shook her flaxen head, laughing, and with the pretty perversity of childhood, would not hear of Uncle Archie. "No, no-Aunt Milly," she cried; "I'm going to Aunt Milly."

And she left her chair and trotted across the room, as if she were setting off on her journey to this imaginary aunt at once.

Mr. Burke chased her to the door, and there caught her up, kissed and tickled her, carrying her back to the table, shrieking with laughter. I think child's play springs out of children themselves. It is not we who teach them, but they teach us. Mr. Burke had never played with a child in his life since he was one himself, and here he was inspired by Rose doing exactly the right thing at the right moment.

So then he took her on his knee, and told her that she was his dear little niece, and that he would be a kind uncle to her, and love her, and she should live in his house from that day forth, and be its little mistress.

Rose understood a little of what he said, and did not understand a great deal of it. She did not know what an Uncle Archie was, but she was beginning in her childish way to love her own one, and she patted his cheek with her fat, soft fingers in an approving manner, and insisted on kissing the tip of his nose, which feat performed, she said he must kiss the tip of hers.

When, however, he said she was to be the little mistress of his house, the words struck some chord in her character that answered to them at once. She tossed her head in the air, and assumed a manner of great importance, strutting about the

room, and saying with great glee, "Rose the little mistress, Rose the little mistress." Uncle Archie was in roars of laughter at the sight, and made up his mind at once that she was an uncommonly clever child.

When Bridget came in to receive her orders for dinner, he told her of the wonderful discovery that he had made the night before.

"The poor little thing is my brother's child. He was sending her home to me, and the ship must have been wrecked. We shall have to make changes in the house, Bridget. She will live here,

and I must get a nurse for her." Bridget was greatly interested and excited by the story, listening with the utmost attention; but when he said the last words she could keep silence and restrain her feelings no longer.

"An' it's meeself that manes to be her nurse, Mr. Burke, an' no other," she said, with vehemence ; "an' it's not the strange woman that Bridget will give the darlin' to-the darlin' that lay in her bed, and smiled in her face, like the wee angel that she is."

66 You, Bridget?" said he, astonished. "But what shall I and the house do in that case?"

"It's meeself can housekeep for you, sir, an' look afther the darlin' child beside. Hire a girl that'll do the work undher me-a strong, dacent girl, an' it's all the change ye'll be wantin'; but give that child up to a strange woman! that's what I canna' do, an' I will na'."

Mr. Burke was quite contented with the arrangement, as he considered that, for the present at least, it would answer well enough; but he thought it best to prepare Bridget from the very first for what he was determined to do sooner or later.

"That will do nicely, you know, Bridget, for a bit; but by-and-by I shall find a governess for Miss Rose, and then you will be able to go back to your old ways. She will take her meals with that young lady, and spend her evenings in the school

room."

"The schoolroom, is it? An' ye'll be afther puttin' that babby (pointing to Rose) in the schoolroom? Ye're ignorant, sir, that's all; but it's somethin' dreadful maybe ye'll be havin' to answer for."

"Don't frighten yourself, Bridget," he said; "Miss Rose shan't go into the schoolroom-or, any way, shall not learn lessons-a day before it's good for her; but I shall have some lady to take care of her who, for want of a better name, will be called her governess. For the present, however, I will gladly take you as her nurse and my housekeeper, and you had better find the girl yourself who is to be under you. I can trust you entirely, and so you may

begin your new duties at once, for I must go to the Four Courts, and leave the little one with you."

Uncle Archie turned to kiss his niece, but that young lady now, for the first time, showed that she had a will and a temper of her own. She cried out that she would go with him; he was her own Untle Archie, and she was his little Rose, and he should not leave her, and she clung to him.

The poor man was quite distressed, and looked helplessly about him, not knowing how to deal with the new species of little wild animal that Rose had suddenly become. Bridget exclaimed, "Dear heart, what do you mane, miss? It's meeself that is ashamed of ye entirely."

And she was for dragging away the little offender by main force. Mr. Burke, however, was pleased to see that there was neither crossness nor anger in Rose's agitation. It seemed rather an excess of feeling and affection, as if the poor little thing, who had been so lately torn from all whom she knew or loved, were afraid of even losing sight of the stranger who had been kind to her. So he treated her tenderly, soothing her, and explaining that though he must go away now, he would be back again in the evening, and that Bridget would take care of little Rose till his return.

"Do you love me?" little Rose asked very earnestly.

And when Uncle Archie patted her head, kissed her, and assured her that he did, she let him go quietly; but she ran to the window and stood at it in order to see him to the last possible moment, rapping against it with her fat knuckles till he looked back to smile and nod at her.

The first day in Fitzwilliam Place was a strange and rather lonely one to Rose, for she had no companion but Bridget, who was busy in house and kitchen work, and could only attend to her from time to time. That night, after her master had dined and the little stranger was fast asleep in bed, Bridget meant to go out and engage a servant to work under her, but till that was done she was obliged to leave Rose a good deal to herself. The little creature seemed accustomed to amuse herself, and played quietly either with some of the toys that had been in her trunk, or at games that she invented for herself. Bridget was in ecstasies with her all day, and before Mr. Burke's return home to dinner had decided that she was the “purtiest, the cleverest, and the swatest babby that she had ever set her two eyes on."

Mr. Burke, during the next few days, did everything that he could to discover the sailor who had brought the child to him, but he never heard of the man, or found any clue that could lead to his whereabouts. A paragraph appeared in the