and work in the house, are they not like the flowers and fruits and grains in the field?

3. The sun makes everybody glad. Even the animals run and leap, and seem more joyous when it shines; and no human being can be so crossgrained or so ill that he does not brighten up a little when a great, broad, warm sunbeam streams over him and plays on his face.

4. It is just so with a cheery person. His simple presence makes even animals happier. Dogs know the difference between him and a surly man. When he pats them on the head and speaks to them, they jump and gambol about just as they do in the sunshine.

5. And when he comes into the room where people are ill, or out of sorts, or dull and moping, they brighten up, in spite of themselves, just as they do when a sudden sunbeam pours in-only more so; for we often see people so ill they do not care whether the sun shines or not, or so cross that they do not even see whether the sun shines or not; but I have never yet seen anybody so cross or so ill that the voice and face of a cheery person would not make him brighten up a little.

6. If there were only a sure and certain recipe for making oneself a cheery person, how glad we should all be to try it! How thankful we should all

be to do good like sunshine! — to cheer up everybody and help everybody along! -to have everybody's face brighten the minute we come in sight! Why, it seems to me that there cannot be in this life any pleasure half so great as this would be.

7. If we looked at life only from a selfish point of view, it would be worth while to be a cheery person, merely because it would be such a satisfaction to have everybody so glad to live with us, to see us, even to meet us in the street.

8. People who have done things which have made them famous, such as winning great battles or filling high offices, often have what are called "ovations." Hundreds of people get together and form a procession, perhaps, or go into a great hall and make speeches, all to show that they recognize what the great man has done. After he is dead, they build a stone monument to him, perhaps, and celebrate his birthday.

9. Men work very hard, sometimes for a whole lifetime, to earn a few things of this sort. But how much greater a thing it would be to have every man, woman, and child know and love one's face because it is full of kindly good cheer! Such a one has a perpetual" ovation" year in and year out, whenever he walks in the street, whenever he enters a friend's house. HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

LXXXII. THE SUNBEAM

1. The golden sun goes gently down
Behind the western mountain brown:
One last bright ray is quivering still,
A crimson line along the hill,
And colors with a rosy light

The clouds far up in heaven's blue height.
2. How many scenes and sights to-day
Have basked beneath the selfsame ray,
Since first the glowing morning broke,
And larks sprang up and lambs awoke,
And fields, with glistening dewdrops bright,
Seemed changed to sheets of silver-white!
3. The ship that rushed before the gale
Has caught it on her bright'ning sail;
The shepherd boy has watched it pass,
When shadows moved along the grass;
The butterflies have loved it much;
The flowers have opened to its touch.

4.

How oft its light has pierced the gloom

Of some full city's garret room,

And glimmered through the chamber bare,
Till the poor workman toiling there

Has let his tools a moment fall,.

To see it dance upon the wall!

5. Perhaps, some prisoner desolate
Has watched it through his iron grate,
And inly wondered as it fell

Across his low and narrow cell,

If things without — hill, sky, and tree-
Were lovely as they used to be.

6. Where'er its ray has broken in,

Have light, and heat, and brightness been.
So gentle love in godly heart

Doth help, and hope, and peace impart,
Nor turns away when griefs oppress;
But ever shines, and shines to bless.

7. Go gently down, thou golden gleam:
And as I watch thy fading beam,
So let me learn, like thee, to give
Pleasure and blessing while I live;
With kindly deed and smiling face,
A SUNBEAM in my lowly place.

Selected.

LXXXIII. THE SPARROW

1. I walked up my garden path as I was coming home from shooting. My dog ran on before me. Suddenly he went slower, and crept carefully forward as if he scented game.

2. I looked along the path and perceived a young

sparrow, with its downy head and yellow bill. The wind, blowing hard through the young birch trees beside the path, had shaken the nest, and the young bird had fallen out. It was sprawling motionless, helpless, on the ground, with its little wings outspread.

3. My dog crept softly up to it, when suddenly an old black-breasted sparrow threw himself down from a neighboring tree. He let himself fall like a stone directly under the dog's nose, and, with ruffled feathers, sprang with a terrified twitter several times against his open, threatening mouth.

4. He had flown down to protect his young at the risk of his life. His little body trembled all over, his cry was hoarse, he was almost frightened to death; but he was willing to sacrifice himself.

5. The dog must have seemed to him a gigantic monster, but for all that he could not stay on his high, safe branch. A power stronger than himself drove him down. My dog stopped and drew back; it seemed as if he, too, respected this power.

6. I hastened to call back the amazed dog, and reverently withdrew. Yes, don't laugh! I felt a reverence for this little hero of a bird, with his parental love. Love, thought I, is mightier than fear, even the fear of death; love alone inspires and is the life of all.

— IVAN TOURGUÉNEFF, Poems in Prose.