7. When we saw it we sighed for joy; we nearly screamed, it was so beautiful. It was divided here and there by yew hedges, so that we kept finding one new place after another; and it seemed to lie all in a warm hollow sheltered by the beech trees, where there was no wind, but nearly always sun. The soil looked as if it had been a garden for hundreds of years, and the plants as if they had grown and grown and had never been disturbed.

8. We saw whole beds of lilies of the valley, clove carnations, burning bush, fleur-de-lis, moss and cabbage roses, day lilies, crown imperials, and more old-fashioned plants and shrubs than I can remember. 9. Bobby looked round at them all and sighed. you make all this garden yourself?" he asked. 10. "Oh, no," Mr. Arthur said. "This is a very

"Did

old garden, as you can see.

favorite plants since I came."

I have only put in my

II. "I never saw so beautiful a place in all my life," I said as earnestly as I could. "May we go down the walks?"

12. Mr. Arthur said we might go wherever we liked. He went with us, and told us all about the plants.

you

13. Bobby began by saying, "Do mind if we ask a few questions? It is a thing, you know, that nurse will not allow."

14. Mr. Arthur said that he did not mind it in the least, and after this was settled, I must say that we asked more than a few.

15. “I feel like the Queen of Sheba,” said Bobby, despondently, when we were going back down the hawthorn walk at last. Mr. Arthur smiled and asked why.

16. "Because when she had seen Solomon's things, there was no more spirit in her, you know," said Bobby, very precisely, for though it takes him a long time to learn a thing, he never forgets it afterwards. "There is no more spirit left in me. I think it is of no use for us to go on with our little gardens."

17. “Ah, but there you are wrong," said Mr. Arthur; "for where would my old garden have been if no one had begun it? Some one must begin everything."

18. "Yes," said Bobby, slowly; "but I don't know that it is of much use for me to begin things of any kind, because they get done so slowly. I might never see the end of them.”

19. "But they will be done for some one else,"

said Mr. Arthur.

20. Bobby is a very truthful boy. He even says things that he need not, because he will never let people think anything untrue about him. So,

though he flushed a little, he looked up into Mr. Arthur's face quite steadily.

21. "But I would rather have things nice for myself than for any one else," he said.

22. "Ah," said Mr. Arthur, quietly, looking down at Bobby as steadily as he looked up. 'But a gentleman does not think always of himself."

23. Bobby stood with his hands behind him, looking up at Mr. Arthur without a word for two or three minutes, and then the red in his face rose higher and higher until it reached his hair.

24. “I am not enough of a gentleman yet," said he; "but perhaps I may grow to be more of a one, if I try."

- FRANCES E. CROMPTON.

XL. HIGHER WILL WE CLIMB

1. Higher, higher will we climb

Up the mount of glory,

That our names may live through time

In our country's story:

Happy, when her welfare calls,

He who conquers, he who falls.

2. Deeper, deeper let us toil

In the mines of knowledge;

Nature's wealth and Learning's spoil
Win from school and college:

Delve we there for richer gems
Than the stars of diadems.

3. Onward, onward may we press
Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness,

Excellence true beauty:

Minds are of celestial birth,

Make we then a heaven of earth.

4. Closer, closer let us knit

Hearts and hands together,

Where our fireside comforts sit

In the wildest weather:

Oh, they wander wide who roam

For the joys of life from home!

- Selected.

XLI. A BOY HERO

1. It was a dark night early in May. The clouds hung low over the wet earth, and through the rushing of the wind and the pelting of the rain could be heard the roar of the river. Fritz Ernst, walking briskly along the road, with his coat collar turned up about his ears, wished he were at home again.

2. "Father is worse off than I," he reflected, as a strip of woodland cut off the beat of the rain for a moment. "If I had to stay out in this storm till

after midnight, I might complain. I know he is worried about the lower bridge, and I don't wonder. The river must be tearing along like a mill race."

3. He struck up a cheery whistle as the light of the little flag station came into view around a turn in the road. Presently the light broadened, the door was flung open, and a man came out, peering eagerly down the black path before him. He had a lantern on his arm.

4. Here I am, father," called Fritz, " and mother has sent you a nice hot supper."

5. "Never mind the supper now, lad," sharply spoke the anxious father. "The river has washed out a piece of the track, and the express is nearly due. There's a freight train on the siding, so I can't switch her off there."

6. "Are the wires down?" asked Fritz.

7.

"No, but the train left the city on time. The local is just behind. There's a chance, but it's a desperate one."

8. "What is it, father?" Fritz was now gravely alert.

9.

The hand car is here in the shed. If we can get it out on the track - it's heavy — perhaps I can work it up the road far enough to signal the express. I am uneasy about the upper bridge, too. I mean to stop them on the other side if possible."