from leaf to root, and swept over the long reaches of the river and woke the sleepers in the city, till mothers clasped their children in their fear.

3. But Medeia called gently to him, and he stretched out his long spotted neck, and licked her hand, and looked up in her face, as if to ask for food. Then she made a sign to Orpheus, and he began his magic song.

4. And as he sung, the forest grew calm again, and the leaves on every tree hung still; and the serpent's head sank down, and his brazen coils grew limp, and his glittering eyes closed lazily, till he breathed as gently as a child, while Orpheus called to pleasant Slumber, who gives peace to men and beasts and waves.

5. Then Jason leapt forward warily, and stepped across that mighty snake, and tore the fleece from off the tree-trunk; and the four rushed down the garden to the bank where the ship Argo lay.

There was silence for a moment, while Jason held the golden fleece on high. Then he cried, Go now, good Argo, swift and steady, if ever you would see Pelion more."

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And she went, as the heroes drove her, grim and silent all, with muffled oars, till the pine wood bent like willow in their hands, and stout Argo groaned beneath their strokes.

6. On and on, beneath the dewy darkness, they fled swiftly down the swirling stream; underneath black walls and temples and the castles of the

princes of the East; past sluice-mouths, and fragrant gardens, and groves of all strange fruits; past marshes where fat kine lay sleeping, and long beds of whispering reeds; till they heard the merry music of the surge upon the bar as it tumbled in the moonlight all alone.

Into the surge they rushed, and Argo leapt the breakers like a horse; for she knew the time was come to show her mettle and win honor for the heroes and herself.

7. Into the surge they rushed, and Argo leapt the breakers like a horse, till the heroes stopped all panting, each man upon his oar, as she slid into the still, broad sea.

Then Orpheus took his harp and sang a pæan, till the heroes' hearts rose high again; and they rowed on stoutly and steadfastly, away into the darkness of the West. Charles Kingsley.

VIRTUE.

1. SWEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky!
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;
For thou must die.

2. Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in the grave,

And thou must die.

3. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
Thy music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

4. Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

George Herbert.

THE WIND AND THE SUN.

1. A DISPUTE once arose between the Wind and the Sun which was the stronger of the two, and they agreed to put the point upon this issue: that whichever soonest made a traveler take off his cloak should be accounted the more powerful.

2. The Wind began, and blew with all his might and main a blast cold and fierce as a Thracian storm; but the stronger he blew the closer the traveler wrapped his cloak around him and the tighter he grasped it with his hands.

3. Then broke out the Sun: with his welcome beams he dispersed the vapor and the cold; the traveler felt the genial warmth, and as the Sun shone brighter and brighter he sat down, overcome with the heat, and cast his cloak on the ground.

4. Thus the Sun was declared the conqueror, and it has ever been deemed that persuasion is better than force.

Æsop.

REST.

I. REST is not quitting
The busy career;
Rest is the fitting

Of self to one's sphere:

2. 'Tis the brook's motion,
Clear without strife;

Fleeting to ocean,

After its life.

3. Tis loving and serving
The highest and best;
"Tis onward, unswerving,
And this is true rest.

Goethe.

"HANDSOME IS THAT HANDSOME DOES."

I. "HANDSOME is that handsome does-hold up your heads, girls!" was the language of Primrose in the play when addressing her daughters. The worthy matron was right. "What is good-look

ing," as Horace Smith remarks, "but looking good?" Be good, be womanly, be gentle, generous in your sympathies, heedful of the well-being of all around you, and, my word for it, you will not lack kind words of admiration; loving and pleasant associations will gather about you.

2. Never mind the ugly reflection which your glass may give you; that mirror has no heart. But quite another picture is yours on the retina of human sympathy; there the beauty of holiness, of purity, of that inward grace which passeth show, rests over it, softening and mellowing its features, just as the calm moonlight melts those of a rough landscape into harmonious loveliness.

3. "Hold up your heads, girls!" I repeat after Primrose. Why should you not? Every mother's daughter of you can be beautiful! You can en

velop yourselves in an atmosphere of moral and intellectual beauty, through which your otherwise plain faces will look forth like those of angels. Beautiful to Ledyard, stiffening in the cold of a Northern winter, seemed the diminutive, smokestained women of Lapland, who wrapped him in their furs, and ministered to his necessities with kindness and gentle words of compassion. Lovely to the homesick heart of Park seemed the dark maids of Sego, as they sang their low and simple song of welcome beside his bed, and sought to comfort the white stranger "who had no mother to bring him milk and no wife to grind him corn."