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Entered according to Act of Congress, in June,lß67, by J. W. Burkk & Cos., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the So. District of Georgia Yol. I. PLAYING HOUSEKEEPING. NE of the most delight- ful books we kll o w of for JfL jv; n o|isli story by Mary U' v Howitt. It is a history of the every day life of two chil- Jk dren, Herbert and Meggy. One of their favorite amuse ments was playing at living in a house. For this purpose they used a little tool house in a secluded part of the garden. It had a little sort ol rustic porch to it, overshadowed by a flowery acacia, and the whole front was overrun with ivy and a Scotch rose. It consisted of two rooms, the inner one of which had a little casement window of four panes. This was the place which ol all others Herbert and Meggy wish ed to have for their house, both rooms were so pleasant. The first looked out from its door under the acacia tree, and the other had such a pretty picturesque window, which would open and shut, and which was surrounded with ivy. The chil dren fancied that the little old wo man who lived in the wood with her dog and bird, in one of Trick s fairy tales, had just such a little room and such a little window as this. Nobody can tell how charming it was to Herbert and Meggy to shut them selves up in this pretty little house. I hey fancied a great many charming things about it which they told to nobody, and as their father saw that they enjoyed it so much, he said that it should be theirs, and that nobody should disturb them in it. Oh, how charming it was when the sun shone through the little window, and the bright form of the four little panes lay MACON, GrA., MARCH 21, 1868 on the floor! There was a shelf, not a high one, but a very broad and strong one, in the first room, and this they call ed “up-stairs.” Their mamma lent them a nice little step-ladder, and this they placed against the shelf, and it was the staircase. They set the doll’s cradle on the shelf, and all such things as made it look like a bed-room, and here they used to put the two dolls, Sophia and Alice, to sleep, while they were busy about their household work. They found in a lum ber room a piece of old Indian matting, with which they covered the floor of the inner room, and then they put a board across the first room to divide it into two parts; and thus they had a hall and a kit chen, while the inner was a grand drawing-room. One day their friend Henry came to see them, and he put up two little lower shelves for them, one in each room, and these were chim ney-pieces. The beautiful kitchen range which their mamma had given them was of course put in its place ; a set of little candlesticks and other things stood on the mantel-piece; afire was al ways supposed to be burning in the grate, and a pot always was on the fire; the coal-box was filled with tiny little pieces of coal, and nothing could be prettier or more complete than the whole place. They deco rated their walls with little pictures, and hung up a smart yellow cord and tassel for a bell; they hung some lilac ribbon, 'which had once trimmed their sister’s bonnet, fes toon-wise above their window, and these were their handsome curtains. They got the gardener to give them ■ome cuttings of evergreens, and these they set in little pots and olaced them in the window, which 'ooked, as they thought, most beau tifully. They invited many people to go and see them in their nouse, and nothing could make them hap pier than having visitors. It was a favorite amusement to them to play at having a trouble some and bad neighbor. They piay ‘ >d that Mrs. Gingham, who had dis turbed them so much in their other house, had. like themselves, removed, and that she now lived just by them in the melon-bed, and that whenever their backs were turned she came and put all their things into disorder. They pretended t-hatshe had a husband as bad as herself, and children a great deal worse. “ Why do you not play that Mrs. Ging ham is a good useful neighbor?” asked somebody one day, “ and that she has a friendly husband and good children?” No. 38