no pay."

   "What men are ye?" asked the youth.

   "We are called Temptation and Opportunity," they answered; "but what matters this name or that? we seek but to serve you. Rest you still, and soon the way shall be clear before you."

   So the youth went back into his house and set him down, and watched how all day long the two toiled apart with mattock and pick, smoothing and levelling, lifting stones out of the way, and hewing down brambles and tangled trees. But at night he laid him down and slept: and then those two ran speedily together, and with fierce looks and eager hands they dug and howked a grave in the earth. Deep it was, and lay straight across the road; yet so cunningly placed that it could not be seen till one was close upon it.

   Morning came, and the youth stood at his door again, and saw the way clear and smooth before him, and the two bowing low, with smiling faces and fawning hands stretched out.

   "Come, good Master!" they cried. "Come, dear youth, and let us bring you on your way!"

   The sick child sat at his window and looked out on the summer world. He was sad at heart, for pain racked him, and weakness held him still; but yet he smiled, because that pleased his mother.

   "I am of no use in the world," said the child to himself; "I am of less worth than yonder broken bough that lies on the ground, for that at least gives trouble to no one, and by and by it will make a fire to warm some poor soul. But still I must smile, lest my mother should be sad."

   Presently the old field mouse who lived over the way came out of her house, with a tiny brown velvet bundle in her mouth. It was one of her eight young ones, and she was taking it to a new place, for the mole who was their landlord had turned

   them out. She had taken five of the little ones to the new house, but now she was weary, and her jaws ached sadly with holding the heavy little creatures.

   "I cannot carry them all!" she said. "The rest must die, since it cannot be helped."

   Just then she looked up, and saw the child smiling at the window.

   "Look!" she said to herself. "That child has been watching me. He smiles with pleasure at the beauty of my young ones, but he has not seen the prettiest 

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