and get angry, it will not mend matters. Keep your temper, play steadily on, and in the long run the cleverest boy will win.

But whether you lose or win, have fair play. Do what is fair and right. Never spoil a good game by cheating. Do not let anything tempt you to use bad language, to tell a lie, or to cheat. All the marbles in the world are not worth it.

You see the boy in the picture. He is just taking his last chance of winning a game. If he misses this time, the next boy will be sure to hit it. So he is playing with care and caution, and I hope he will win.

As I said before, I like to see boys play at marbles. Any game of skill will do you good. Beware of games of chance. When I see children tossing money, and see young men tossing for money, I expect to see them grow up idle, worthless, and wicked. Games of skill make you clever, wise, and prudent; games of chance will never make you wiser, stronger, or better.

Tom Brown was the terror of the village. He was a lazy, worthless fellow, who would rather beg than work. If he could not beg as much as he wanted, he would steal. He was always poor.

He had no proper home of his own, so he had often to sleep in a barn or near a haystack. No farmer would have him near, if he could help it; for Tom would light his pipe in the barns and stables, to the great danger of the hay and straw.

It was not because Tom was weak and feeble that he was so poor. He was as strong and hale as any man you might see in the village; but he had no disposition to work. He was often drunk and quarrelsome; and he had often been in prison, but his punishment seemed to have done him no good.

One day he had been drinking and fighting, and the whole village took up the case. The people said he was a disgrace to them, that he was a rogue and a vagabond, and ought to be severely punished.

Now there stood on the village green the stocks, which had been used for more than a hundred years for the punishment of such characters as Tom. These stocks were two upright stone pillars, with cross-bars of wood between them. There were holes in these bars large enough to put a man's legs through, and so arranged that his feet could be made fast that he could not run away.

To these stocks the men carried Tom Brown. They put his legs through, made his feet fast, locked him up, and left him to think over his folly and wickedness. As he sat on a block of stone, with his feet so fast that he could not move, he began to feel very uneasy. The people came to look at his dirty face and torn clothes, and stood in front of him talking about him.

Tom did not like to hear what they said about

him, and became very angry; but he could not reach them to do any harm. He made so much noise, however, and said so many bad words, that a mob gathered round and pelted him with potatoes, eggs, mud, stones, and dirt. He was soon glad enough to beg for mercy and promise to behave himself for the future. The people insisted upon his leaving the village entirely, threatening that if he ever came again they would throw him into the middle of the horsepond, and then lock him in the stocks for a day and a night.

As soon as Tom was set free he marched off from the village, and never came back. He was heard to say that he did not care for the prison, but he would never go into the stocks again if he could help it. What became of him no one ever knew. Let us hope he became a sober, honest, well-behaved man. He was certainly the last man who had his feet made fast in the stocks of that village.

49. THE ARROW AND THE SONG.

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterwards, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

LONGFELLOW.

50. SONG OF THE BEES.

We watch for the light of the morn to break,
And colour the eastern sky

With its blended hues of saffron and lake;
Then say to each other, 'Awake! awake!
For our winter's honey is all to make,
And our bread for a long supply.'

And off we hie to the hill and dell,

To the field, to the meadow and bower;
We love in the columbine's horn to dwell,
To dip in the lily with snow-white bell,
To search for the balm in its fragrant cell,
The mint and the rosemary flower.

Our next beautiful picture represents a scene in the desert. The deserts of Arabia and Africa are barren, sandy wastes, extending sometimes for