flattened skull, which destroyed his perfect symmetry, though we occasionally remedied this defect by leaving him a small portion of his basket, and pretending it was hair. Now, alas! though the children still mount guard on their flower-wreathed pedestals, and still scatter their roses in the air, some unkind hand has wrought radical changes in their aspect. They have grown bigger, stouter, and their decent little tunics, so nicely drawn up over one shoulder, have been replaced by those absurd floating draperies which form the conventional attire of seraphs and sea nymphs all the world over. Never was there such an unhappy transformation. It is true that on the old cover of Bentley's Magazine—if we may trust the minute picture of it on the face of Littell—the little figures with baskets were clad, or unclad, in these same airy rags. But this fact does not reconcile me at all. I never knew Bentley's boys, but I have known Harper's children all my life, and I cannot bear to see them shivering month after month in such ridiculous, inadequate sashes. What sort of paper dolls would they have made
