ise him. Don't let us quite
turn his head.'

"'Decided talent,' wrote the editor, 'with the usual carelessness.
That he can write incorrect verses may be seen in page 25, where there
are two false quantities. We recommend him to study the ancients,
etc.'

"I went away," continued the Moon, "and looked through the windows in
the aunt's house. There sat the be-praised poet, the _tame_ one; all
the guests paid homage to him, and he was happy.

"I sought the other poet out, the _wild_ one; him also I found in a
great assembly at his patron's, where the tame poet's book was being
discussed.

"'I shall read yours also,' said Maecenas; 'but to speak honestly--you
know I never hide my opinion from you--I don't expect much from it,
for you are much too wild, too fantastic. But it must be allowed that,
as a man, you are highly respectable.'

"A young girl sat in a corner; and she read in a book these words:

"'In the dust lies genius and glory,
But ev'ry-day talent will _pay_.
It's only the old, old story,
But the piece is repeated each day.'"

THIRTEENTH EVENING.

The Moon said, "Beside the woodland path there are two small
farmhouses. The doors are low, and some of the windows are placed
quite high, and others close to the ground; and whitethorn and
barberry bushes grow around them. The roof of each house is overgrown
with moss and with yellow flowers and houseleek. Cabbage and potatoes
are the only plants cultivated in the gardens, but out of the hedge
there grows a willow tree, and under this willow tree sat a little
girl, and she sat with her eyes fixed upon the old oak tree between
the two huts.

"It was an old withered stem. It had been sawn off at the top, and a
stork had built his nest upon it; and he stood in this nest clapping
with his beak. A little boy came and stood by the girl's side: they
were brother and sister.

"'What are you looking at?' he asked.

"'I'm watching the stork,' she replied: 'our neighbours told me that
he would bring us a little brother or sister to-day; let us watch to
see it come!'

"'The stork brings no such things,' the boy declared, 'you may be sure
of that. Our neighbour told me the same thing, but she laughed when
she said it, and so I asked her if she could say 'On my honour,' and
she could not; and I know by that that the story about the storks is
not true, and that they only tell it to us children for fun.'

"'But where do the babies come