"The Rover's Secret is by far the best sea story we have read for years, and is certain to give unalloyed pleasure to boys. The illustrations are fresh and vigorous."--Saturday Review.
th lips which mingled kisses of tenderest affection with softly-breathed blessings upon my infant head. At first I used to mention these visitations to Mary, my nurse, but I soon forbore to do so, noticing that she always looked uncomfortably startled for a moment or two afterwards, and generally dismissed the subject somewhat hurriedly by remarking:
"Ah, poor lamb! you've been dreaming about your mother."
Which remark annoyed me, for I felt convinced that so realistic an experience could not possibly result from a mere dream.
It sometimes happened that there were no tragedies or other horrors in the newspapers sufficiently piquant to tempt the cook's intellectual palate; and in the absence of these, if it happened also to be Jane's "evening out," Mary would occasionally produce a well-thumbed copy of the Arabian Nights, or some old volume of fairy tales, from which she read aloud.
How I enjoyed those evenings with the old Eastern romancist! How I revelled in the imaginary
