the children, 'if you go a-bouncing up against them bushes you'll
fall over into the river and be drownded, and what'll your pa say
then?'

At the same time this nurse picked up Mrs. Pocket's handker-
chief, and said, 'If that don't make six times you've dropped it,
Mum!' Upon which Mrs. Pocket laughed and said, 'Thank you,
Flopson,' and settling herself in one chair only, resumed her book.
Her countenance, immediately assumed a knitted and intent ex-
pression as if she had been reading for a week, but before she could
have read half a dozen lines, she fixed her eyes upon me, and said,
'I hope your mamma is quite well?' This unexpected inquiry put
me into such a difficulty that I began saying in the absurdest way
that if there had been any such person I had no doubt she would
have been quite well and would have been very much obliged and
would have sent her compliments, when the nurse came to my
rescue.

'Well!' she cried, picking up the pocket handkerchief, 'if that
don't make seven times! What ARE you a-doing of this afternoon,
Mum!' Mrs. Pocket received her property, at first with a look of
unutterable surprise as if she had never seen it before, and then
with a laugh of recognition, and said, 'Thank you, Flopson,' and
forgot me, and went on reading.

I found, now I had leisure to count them, that there were no
fewer than six little Pockets present, in various stages of tumbling
up. I had scarcely arrived at the total when a seventh was heard,
as in the region of air, wailing dolefully.

'If there ain't Baby!' said Flopson, appearing to think it most
surprising. 'Make haste up, Millers!'

Millers, who was the other nurse, retired into the house, and by
degrees the child's wailing was hushed and stopped, as if it were a
young ventriloquist with something in its mouth. Mrs. Pocket read
all the time, and I was curious to know what the book could be.

We were waiting, I suppose, for Mr. Pocket to come out to us;
at any rate we waited there, and so I had an opportunity of ob-
serving the remarkable family phenomenon that whenever any of
the children strayed near Mrs. Pocket in their play, they always
tripped themselves up and tumbled over her--always very much

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