birds have been awake, chirping and twittering for more than an hour, and the sun has stolen the first cool freshness from the clear dewdrops, as a pair of small feet come scudding across the lawn and down the gravel path.
Phil is up betimes to-day. He had opened his eyes as he heard cook's heavy, deliberate tread on the stairs—she is stout and old, and he knows her step well—and then he knew that it must be quite early, about half-past five.

Very gaily he tumbled out of his bed, and struggled into his white summer suit.

He grew rather mixed over the buttons. There seemed so many along the top of his small knickerbockers! What could be the use of them all? One was quite enough to hold the things together, and he made up his mind to ask nurse to cut off all the others.

Not now, though! Oh no! He only peeped into her room through the half-open door, with a mischievous smile on his sweet bonny face, and looked at her still sleeping figure, until she stirred a little. Then he promptly drew back his head, and snatching up his garden shoes, ran noiselessly down the stairs.

He watched from behind the hall curtain until cook had opened the garden door, and gone to fetch her pail.

Now came his opportunity! Pulling on his shoes, he was quickly scuttling over the grass, looking very like a small white rabbit, as he disappeared among the trees and shrubs.

I don't think that my little motherless, six-year-old friend knew that he was doing anything naughty when he escaped in this way from the vigilance of his lawful guardians.

There was an honest, unselfish desire in his heart which had prompted this deeply laid plan, and he had been waiting for several days, with a patience rarely seen in a child his age, for an opportunity to carry it into effect.

As he trotted past his own strip of garden, at the further end of the Rose Walk, he was thinking to himself—

"Of course, nobody must see me do it. Gentlemen never do things because they want to be thanked. I should hate it so if she said 'thank you,' even once."

And away went the fat legs down the kitchen garden, and across the paddock, towards Farmer Greeson's corn field, where the golden grain stood helplessly in closely packed shocks.

Poor Farmer Greeson thought it very hard that Club Day should come just in the middle of his "harvesting;" that his precious wheat must stand a whole day waiting to be carried; and that another field must wait uncut while the club enjoyed itself. But, then, the old man was obliged to remind himself that the harvest was much later than usual this year. Unsettled weather and frequent storms had upset so many farming operations.

Ah! But what was a lost day to Farmer Greeson was Phil's golden opportunity.

He had listened to the servants' talk about their holiday, and though he did not quite understand what "Club Day" meant, he was quite sure that he need not be afraid of intruders upon his darling scheme at this early hour, and so he climbed the farmer's gate, and dropped with a merry "hurrah" on to the stubbly ground.

An hour later still finds Phil alone in the field, stooping over the ground and moving slowly along. He looks like a tiny old man, with his bent form and his hat pushed to the back of his head.

Phil is gleaning.

Steadily and laboriously he gathers up the scattered ears of corn.