her ball of silk; "but now hear my story. There was once a little boy who must needs go to the Wishing-Gate. His fairy godmother showed him the road as far as the turn, and told him to ask the first owl he met what to do then.

So

"But this little boy seldom used his eyes. he passed the first owl, and waked up the wrong owl. He passed the water-sprite, and found only a frog. He sat down under the pine-tree, and never saw the crow. He passed the Dream-man, and ran after Jack-o'-Lantern. He tumbled down the goblin's chimney, and couldn't find the shoes and the closet, the chest and the cloak. He sat on the top of the Wishing-Gate, till the South Wind brought him home, and never knew it.

"Ugh! Bah!" And away went the fairy godmother up the chimney, in such deep disgust that she did not even stop for her mouse-skin cloak.

A diller, a dollar,

A ten o'clock scholar,

What makes you come so soon?
You used to come at ten o'clock,

But now you come at noon.

Abridged.

THE WONDERFUL WORLD

BY WILLIAM BRIGHTY RANDS

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World,
With the wonderful water round you curled,
And the wonderful grass upon your breast,
World, you are beautifully drest.

The wonderful air is over me,

And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree— It walks on the water, and whirls the mills, And talks to itself on the top of the hills.

You friendly Earth, how far do you go,
With the wheat-fields that nod and the rivers

that flow,

With cities and gardens, and cliffs and isles,
And people upon you for thousands of miles?

Ah! you are so great, and I am so small,
I hardly can think of you, World, at all;
And yet, when I said my prayers to-day,
A whisper within me seemed to say:

"You are more than the Earth, though you are such a dot!

You can love and think, and the Earth can not!"

Dolly, the milkmaid, had been a good girl for a long, long time. So one morning her mistress called her and said, "Here, Dolly, is a fresh pail of milk. You may do with it as you like."

With the pail of milk upon her head, Dolly tripped gaily along on her way to the town where she was going to sell her milk.

"The money for which I shall sell this milk," said Dolly to herself, "will buy me twenty eggs. The mistress will surely lend me a hen. If only half of the chicks grow up, I shall have ten to sell at Christmas. Then they will bring the highest price.

"With this money I'll buy the jacket that I saw in the village the other day, and a hat and ribbons, too. When I go to the fair how fine I

shall be!

"Robin will be there, and will come up and offer to be friends again. But I won't come around too easily. When he wants me for a partner in the dance, I shall just toss up my head and "

Here Dolly gave her head the least bit of a toss. Down came the pail and all the milk was spilled upon the ground. Poor Dolly was no better off than before.

Moral: Don't count your chickens before they are hatched.