uncovered as it passed on its sorrowful way. I stood still for an instant to watch it; suddenly a small figure, rushing across the road, darting nimbly in front of a quickly advancing carriage, as if afraid of being too late, caught my eyes. It was my little friend of the violets! There was no mistaking him—and his grandfather's, it seemed to me, almost familiar figure, waiting and looking after the child from the other side of the road. What is the boy in such a hurry for? Ah—I see now, and my own eyes are not free from tears.[Pg 53]

[Pg 52]

[Pg 53]

Breathless and eager he runs up to the poor little procession, with blushing face and gentle hands he lays on the tiny coffin his treasured violets—beautiful in themselves, doubly beautiful as the gift of a sweet and pitiful heart—and without waiting for the thanks ready to burst forth from the over-laden hearts of the two parents, hastens back again to his old grandfather, whose face I can distinguish lit up with a smile of tender approval.

"God bless him," the poor father murmurs. I am near enough to hear it—"God bless him," the weeping mother repeats.

"God bless him," I whisper to myself.

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."

 

 

A CANARY TRAGEDY.

[Pg 54] 

[Pg 54]

WHEN I was a little girl—that is about three years ago—I am now thirteen—my own particular pets were a pair of canaries. We had lots of other pets; it would take me a very long[Pg 55] time merely to give you the list of them even without telling you anything about them, and all their adventures and funny ways. But a good many of them had in one way or another come to grief, poor things, and as my brothers grew older and had less time to take care of them, my mother said we must really give up having so many.

W

HEN

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