Sharp eyes, however, must be at work; for, ere he could appropriate this mysterious waif on Love's manor, a side-door opened, and an attendant in the very unpoetical garb of a carpenter bore off the prize.

" "That is well, that will make a small bundle," but the old gentleman looked at his grandson, rather surprised, and said: "I am astonished, little waif, that you look so fine.

"Yes, but it's so near Christmas that I suppose he won't bother about two waifs like us until after it's over.

Miss Sellon, the foundress of English sisterhoods, adopted and brought up in her convent at Devonport a little Irish waif who had been made an orphan by the outbreak of cholera in 1849.

He carried these waifs home and stored them in an attic secretly, for he would have found it hard to explain his motives to the intellectually childless.

By Louisa M. Alcott Author of "Little Women," etc. Originally published under the title "PROVERB STORIES" 1882 [Illustration: Deeper in the wood sounded the measured ring of axes] PREFACE Being forbidden to write anything at present I have collected various waifs and strays to appease the young people who clamor for more, forgetting that mortal brains need rest.

The waifs from the slum and the gutter Are off "to the country" in troops, To feed on new eggs and fresh butter, To frolic with balls and with hoops; These three, with their eyes on the poster That hints unattainable joys, Must envy the son of the Coster, The waifs of the Workhouse.

She may fancy me her propertya private waif and stray.

Surely, I thought, they were not going to tar and feather these harmless, good-for-nothing waifs of the frontier; and even as I thought it, I saw the glimmering of the fire they were kindling under the tar-kettle.

"You are very quiet," he said at last, ceasing to fling waifs upon the stream.

In 1870, Isabella Thoburn gathered six little waifs into her first school in India, a one-roomed building in the noisy, dusty bazaar of Lucknow.

Knowing this, you may understand in some degree what could induce a little waif like me to accept such an offer as yours.

All credit is due Mr. and Mrs. Breen for keeping the nine helpless waifs left with them at Starved Camp alive until food was brought them by members of the Third Relief Party.

Here we might leave the beautiful waif, so strangely picked up in the dark street, to the working of her own genius.

My boys are under orders to let the lovely little waif alone.

He loved his little sea-waif as ardently as ever father loved a child, and for five years he fancied and feared she loved the lieutenant of the Xenophon.

Mr. and Mrs. Breen being left there with their own five suffering children and the four other poor, moaning little waifs, were tortured by situations too heart-rending for description, too pitiful to seem true.

God knows, at that moment I pitied the poor dumb waif, alone in all the whole round earth with me.

She knew that somewhere in the green abyss His body swung in curves of watery force, Now in a circle slow revolved, and now Swaying like wind-swung bell, when surface waves Sank their roots deep enough to reach the waif, Hither and thither, idly to and fro,

Then a man started up at the mare's cry, and seeing Sindbad, bore him to an underground chamber, where he regaled the waif with plenteous food.

The captain seized the little waif, And said, "What dost thou here?" "Sapristi, Citizen captain!

Not until she was in her own room, seated in a comfortable chair and gazing at them anxiously, did they tell the poor waif of the good fortune in store for her.

I've already given my keep-sakes to the boys, and to your parents, and I hope all of you will sometimes remember the poor old sea-dog that God, in his wisdom, threw like a waif in your way, that he might be benefited by your society.

For more than a year I thoroughly enjoyed the work of uplifting those waifs on our sea of life; they responded appreciatively to the influence of kindly words and acts, even as the Aeolian harp yields its sweetest music to the caresses of the airs of heaven.

He was even observed on a calm day to watch these waifs as they floated off, and was confidently believed to recognise them as his own property, while in such language as he knew, which was not syllabic, he talked and scolded at them, as if, in spite of facts, he meant to charge them with being down there entirely through their own perversity.