and contented with those things which her heavenly Father thought right to give her.

But I must not forget to say, that when I opened my parcel I found a beautiful coloured picture of a little boy standing by a table, on which a man, who seemed to be his father, was planing and carving some wood.

Whilst I was looking at this beautiful picture, my grandmamma had got up, and all the rest had followed her, and gone out of the arbour, excepting my governess, but she stood and looked down at me.

"Who is this pretty boy, governess?" I said.

"That picture represents our Lord Jesus Christ," she said, "when living on earth with his mother Mary and her husband Joseph; for scripture says, he was then the humblest of little boys, meek and lowly; and yet, Elizabeth, he was at that time, and ever was, and ever shall be, the greatest both in heaven and earth, above all principalities. But he became man for us, in order that, in human flesh he might fulfil his Father's will, and die for us that we might live. You can not now understand all that he has done for you; but if you are brought to love him, you will be a happy child; you will learn to think. humbly of yourself; you will be kind and gentle, and you will be conformed to his image, and grow in favour with God and man."

At that moment little Lily came up, shewing her feet with her red shoes, like Margery Two Shoes in the penny book; and I jumped up, and threw my arms round her neck, begging her to forgive me all my pride and wickedness. I then put on my own red shoes; and we went hand and hand to dance together on the green with the rest of our companions; and from that day Lily was my favourite companion and best friend at school; and those were the happiest hours of my early life when I was permitted to be

B

alone with her, and to talk with her of that dear Saviour in whom the fatherless find mercy.

And now, my little reader, I think you will not wonder if I have a pleasant remembrance of my pretty red shoes.

THE LOFTY AND THE LOWLY WAY.

PREFACE.

THE Lofty and Lowly Way, is a story intended for very little people, but it contains a lesson which many old people might study to advantage. Our blessed Saviour says, "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it," Matth. vii. 14.; but this verse has been very much misunderstood, and people bring it forward to prove that there are very few saved.

Now I would wish you to know, my young friends, that if it depended on ourselves to find the strait gate and narrow way, there would be none of us saved, for there is none that doeth good, no, not one. But Christ, who is the strait gate, has aforetime found those who walk in the lowly way, and he will bring them in, and they shall never be thrust out; for as

it is said, Job xxii. 29., "When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up; and he shall save the humble person."

My dear little children, if you will please to buy this little book which I have written for you, I think you will find much amusement in it; and I hope that it will be to you a lesson of wisdom, for within this little tale is hid a holy moral, by which you will be admonished, I trust, to learn to walk with all lowliness and meekness, Eph. iv. 1, 2. for before destruction the heart of man is haughty; and before honour is humility, Prov. xviii. 12.

I bought this lesson when I was very young, in a way which cost me little more than a torn frock, a spoilt bonnet, and a few tears; and surely it was cheaply purchased, for how many have bought it at the cost of all the happiness of their lives on earth.

But to tell my little story:-My father and mother were humble people, living in a small cottage, in a certain meadow, called, in that country, the cowslip meadow, by reason of the multitude of cowslips with which the pasture abounded. My parents were not, however, wholly dependant on their own labour; that is, they had a little money of their own, and the house we lived in, and a field in which they kept a cow, with a very large garden; and my father was fully employed in his garden, whilst my mother took care of the house, and of her little ones.

There were five of us :-Edward was the eldest; then came Alice; I was only one year younger than Alice-my name is Kitty; and then came little Emmy; the youngest child was Thomas, who was yet a baby when I was between eight and nine years

of age, at which time the thing happened which I am about to relate.

It was on the morning of old May-day, at the time when cuckoos sing, and the hedges are white with hawthorn, and the new leaves are of a tender green, and the air is filled with the sweet smell of many flowers, that our dear parents informed us that they were to be out all day. "We are going," they said, "to see our old aunt and uncle, who live three miles distant, and we shall carry little Thomas with us; and the rest of you, our little ones, may walk to grandmother's. She always has a joint of meat and a pudding on old May-day, and she will be looking for some of us; and you must carry with you a pot of fresh butter, and a bundle of rhubarb, a few new laid eggs, and a white cake."

Then we were washed and combed; and Edward had a clean shirt put on, and his Sunday jacket, and we three little girls had our new strawberry frocks, which our grandmother had given us at Easter, and our green silk bonnets and tippets, lined with pink, and our white mittens; and then our dear parents kissed us, and set us off, saying, "My little ones, you know the way it lies under the hills, and you have only a mile and a half to walk, and be sure you return again by eight o'clock.”

Now, I have told you that our father's house, stood in a meadow, through which ran a brook of fresh cold water; and when the brook left that meadow, it ran a long way under a high woody bank. The sides of that bank were very steep, and very often, when it was shady and pleasant under that bank by the brook, it was very hot, and sometimes very windy, on the top and on the sides of the hill. There was a way to our grandmother's along the top of the bank, but it was some way about; and there was a way also at the bottom of the bank, winding along by the side of