She smiled, and thanked me very much, and said she could not tell,

But she believed my welcome gifts would help to make him well;

Because they'd keep the little ones so quiet all the day,

And if he could but sleep awhile, his pains would go

away.

Then reading, writing, cyphering, the morning soon was spent ;

This done, to see the new young lambs, with grandI went :

mamma,

I chose the prettiest of the flock, and that it might be

known,

I tied a ribbon round its neck to mark it for my

own.

Then dinner came, and soon was o'er-that did not keep me long;

And then I took my music-book, and tried your last new song;

Whilst Anne and Willy danced with joy to hear me sing and play,

And begged that I would come again, and sing another day.

Then came the time for needle work, I marked two letters well,

And hemmed a pocket-handkerchief, and taught myself to spell

Those three hard words that you had marked as being wrong before,

And then the parlor clock chimed out the welcome hour of four.

Then farewell slates, and books, and all,-my daily task was done,

And I was free to range about, to sing, to laugh, to

run,

To skip, to dance, to ride, to walk, or with my doll

to play;

Now, dear mamma, say, has not this been a delightful

day?

"It has, dear child-the reason is, you have been WELL employed,

That is the secret why the day has been so much

enjoyed;

Be all your time as usefully and innocently spent, And conscience shall be satisfied, and whisper you content."

ANIMALS AND VEGETABLES.

“I Do think, Willy," said his mother to him one morning," that the trees will soon be in leaf."

"Oh, how glad I am! for then it will be summer, and we shall go to Ash Grove."

"Not yet," replied his mother; "we cannot jump at once from winter to summer; the spring comes between." Willy inquired what the spring meant; and his mamma told him, that in the spring the weather was neither so cold as in winter nor so hot as in summer; and that the green leaves come out in spring.

"I thought," said Willy, "that the spring was made of water; for I remember John said one day, that he had been to the spring to fetch a pailful of water."

"That is quite another thing," said his mother: a spring of water is a little stream of water which comes out of the ground; and sometimes it rushes out so fast, that it seems to spring up, just as you spring up, when you jump into my arms: and that is the reason it is called a spring of water.' "Oh, do take me to see one, mamma," cried Willy.