extract from "Queen's Gardens"
in his sermon. Two of his listeners never had half understood its
meaning before as they did then. Bessie was in church, and Miss Sydney
suddenly turned her head, and smiled at her young friend, to the great
amazement of the people who sat in the pews near by. What could have
come over Miss Sydney?

"The path of a good woman is strewn with flowers; but they rise
_behind_ her steps, not before them. 'Her feet have touched the
meadow, and left the daisies rosy.' Flowers flourish in the garden of
one who loves them. A pleasant magic it would be if you could flush
flowers into brighter bloom by a kind look upon them; nay, more, if a
look had the power not only to cheer, but to guard them. This you
would think a great thing? And do you think it not a greater thing
that all this, and more than this, you can do for fairer flowers than
these,--flowers that could bless you for having blessed them, and will
love you for having loved them,--flowers that have eyes like yours, and
thoughts like yours, and lives like yours?"

[Illustration: decoration]

[Illustration: decoration]

A BRAVE BOY.

"Speaking of courage," said my friend Tom Barton, as we met one day
after a long separation, "reminds me of an incident that happened at
the doctors' school the first winter after you left.

"It was during the Christmas holidays, and all of the boys had gone
home except two brothers, named Fred and Albert Kobb, and myself. They
were obliged to stay during the vacation because their parents were
spending the season in Florida, and I,--well, as you know, my home was
at a distance, and we were poor, so I remained at school.

"The brothers were very unlike, both in appearance and character.
Fred, the elder of the two, was a large, muscular, ruddy-faced boy, not
much in love with books. He was of an over-bearing disposition, and
had a great deal of conceit.

"Albert, on the contrary, was pale and slender. He was very quiet and
studious, and had such a love of honesty and truth, and such
detestation of meanness and wrong, that we boys had dubbed him the
'Parson.'

"It was the Saturday night between Christmas and New Year's. We three
boys were hugging the stove in the little room adjoining the doctor's
study. Doctor was in the study writing a sermon for the following day,
as he had to preach at Milltown.

"We could hear his pen scratching over the paper during the lulls in
our c