with her; and, considering with himself that such a gift was worth more than any marriage-portion whatsoever in another, he conducted her to the palace of the king, his father, and there married her.

As for her sister, she made herself so much hated that her own mother turned her off; and the miserable girl, having wandered about a good while without finding anybody to take her in, went to a corner in the wood and there died.

Talking in Their Sleep.*

EDITH M. THOMAS.

"You
“Yo the apple

-tree said,

OU think I am dead,”

The apple-tree said,
“Because I have never a leaf to show-

Because I stoop,

And my branches droop,
And the dull gray mosses over me grow!
But I'm all alive in trunk and shoot;

The buds of next May

I fold away-
But I pity the withered grass at my root.”

"You think I am dead,"

The quick grass said, “Because I have started with stem and blade!

But under the ground

I am safe and sound
With the snow's thick blanket over me laid.
I'm all alive and ready to shoot,

Should the spring of the year

Come dancing here-
But I pity the flower without branch or root."

* From Harper's Third Reader, by permission of American Book Co.

“You think I am dead,"

A soft voice said, “Because not a branch or root I own!

I never have died,

But close I hide In a plumy seed that the wind has sown. Patient I wait through the long winter hours;

You will see me again

I shall laugh at you, then,
Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers."

The Child and the Lily.*

BRYANT.

INNO

NNOCENT children and snow-white flower!

Well are ye paired in your opening hour, Thus should the pure and lovely meet, Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet.

White as those leaves just blown apart,
Are the folds of thy own young heart;
Guilty passion and cankering care
Never have left their traces there.

Artless one! though thou gazest now
O'er the white blossoms with earnest brow,
Soon will it tire thy childish eye,
Fair as it is, thou wilt throw it by.

Throw it aside in thy weary hour,
Throw to the ground the fair white flower;
Yet, as thy tender years depart,

Keep that white and innocent heart.
* By permission of D. Appleton & Co., publishers.

THE

Grow, and Keep on Growing. *
HE sun shone out on a clear March day,

And sent his beams, so cheery,
Straight from the heavens so far away

Through a snow-bank damp and dreary,
Down, down and down through the forest mold,

Though the chill west winds were blowing,
And said to the small seeds hidden there,

“Grow, and keep on growing."
The seeds sprang up at the earnest call,

And the white roots burrowed lowly,
In the deep, damp soil, poor patient things,

But the plants crept upward slowly;
They timidly peeped above the ground,

And sighed, “It has just been snowing;
We'll snuggle back," but the sun sent word,

"Grow, and keep on growing."

Then the tiny mouths of the slender roots

Drank of the moisture springing
Amid the moss—the earth's sweet soil,

The food for their fruitage bringing.
But creeping thus in the dark, they found

Boulders their path bestrewing;
"We'll rest," they said; but the sun said, “No!

Grow, and keep on growing."
* From Fairy Land of Flowers, by permission of Educational
Publishing Co.