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A RAINY DAY.
NOT long after Grandfather had told the story of his great chair, there chanced to be a rainy day.

Our friend Charley, after disturbing the household with beat of drum and riotous shouts, races up and down the staircase, overturning of chairs, and much other uproar, began to feel the quiet and confinement within doors intolerable.

But as the rain came down in a flood, the little fellow was hopelessly a prisoner, and now stood with sullen aspect at a window, wondering whether the sun itself were not extinguished by so much moisture in the sky.
Charley had already exhausted the less eager activity of the other children; and they had betaken themselves to occupations that did not admit of his companionship.

Laurence sat in a recess near the book-ease, reading, not for the first time, the Midsummer Night's Dream.