The fame of Old England is great,
A scraper for spice is a grater,
A manner of walking is a gait
But an over-all trowser's a gaiter.

To incline any way is to tend,

A five-year's old fowl isn't tender, I'll give you one more for the end, Saul called on the old witch of Endor.

LIFE.

We are born-we laugh-we weep-
We love we droop—we die!
Ah! wherefore do we laugh, or weep?
Why do we live, or die?

Who knows that secret deep?

Alas! not I.

Why doth the violet spring

Unseen by human eye?

Why doth the radiant seasons bring

Sweet thoughts that quickly fly?

Why do our fond hearts cling

To things that die?

We toil, through pain and wrong

We fight-and fly?

We love we lose--and then, ere long,

Cold and dead we lie!

O life! is all thy song

"Endure and-die!"

HOPS AND BEANS;

THE WAY THEIR VINES RUN.

OT more than two in a hundred, I am sure, have

NOT

well learned the art of seeing. I doubt whether many people know that there is such an art. They overlook the most interesting facts, they don't see things right before them. We may refer to the vines of their gardens. They walk among them daily, without so much as suspecting that some of them are very particular as to the way they run.

"I am not sure that I understand you, sir. It sounds rather queer, that vines are particular which way they run. I always thought that they creep about in any direction, just where there is the most room, or the best chance to lay hold of a support." You talk, John, pretty much as I expected. It is true that those vines which keep to the ground, seem satisfied to run to any one of a hundred points of the compass. It is true, also, that those which have an upward tendency, are apt to cling to whatever is most convenient. Still, they are very nice as to the manner in which they lay hold of their supports, and coil themselves around them. You needn't go far for the proof of this.

Here are some hop-vines. You will find, on examination, that they all take the same course-that in coiling around their respective poles, they all go from the east to the west by way of the south. Nor

can you force them to change their direction. If you put them around the poles in reverse order, you will find, before many days have passed, that they have undone your work, and coiled themselves up just as they were before you meddled with them.

Step across, now, to this patch of beans. These, too, you observe, have a manifest choice in regard to the route they take. Starting from the east, again, every runner reaches the west by going around by the north side of the pole. And they are just as much determined to go in this direction as are the hop-vines to go in the other. They will resist all your attempts to train them to a different

course.

You see, then, that these plants are under law. They are bound to a fixed method of growth and development. They must take a definite direction, as certainly as water must run down-hill. Nor is this otherwise than we should expect. It is only one of the innumerable instances of order and method which appear in the works of God, and which so powerfully illustrate his wisdom and good

ness.

N°

man who improves his leisure hours in reading and study, can fail of becoming distinguished and useful in his profession; while he who spends his time in idleness or self-indulgence, is sure to occupy an inferior position in life.

THE FLY.

WHAT a sharp little fellow is Mister Fly,

He

goes where he pleases, low or high,

And can walk just as well with his feet to the sky As I can on the floor.

At the window he comes,

With a buzz and a roar,

And o'er the smooth glass,

Can easily pass,

Or through the key-hole of the door.

He eats the sugar and goes away,

Nor even once asks what there is to pay,
And sometimes he crosses the tea-pot's steam
And comes and plunges his head in the cream;
Then on the edge of the jug he stands,
And cleans his wings with his feet and hands,
This done, through the window he hurries away,
And gives a buzz as if to say,

"At present I haven't a minute to stay,

But 'll peep in again in the course of the day,"

Then away he'll fly,

Where the sunbeams lie,

And neither stop to shake hands,
Nor bid one good bye :

Such a strange little fellow is Mister Fly,
Who goes where he pleases, low or high,
And can walk on the ceiling

Without even feeling

A fear of tumbling down "sky high."

LITTLE DOG TOBY AND THE WHITE

PITCHER.

UST as likely as not, the MERRY children have a little dog at home. He may be black, or white, or brindled, or speckled, and he has a name to which he answers when called by it.

Well, I have a little dog, too, and he is yellow, and he has a large

white spot on the side of his neck, and his name is Toby. He is about as large as a large cat, and he is very nimble in running and jumping.

We were taking tea, and Toby made himself a little too familiar by jumping up at one and then at another, so we had him put out into the kitchen.

Very soon we heard a loud threshing and knocking about the kitchen floor, and Toby began to scream and yell most piteously.

We thought he was in some mischief, and that Maggy, the little colored girl, was chastising him without due authority. Still there was no accounting for the knocking on the floor and around the room, accompanied by the screams of the poor little