n went Bert's head into his hands.

"But now," continued his father, placing one hand upon his shoulder,
"now I have my honest boy again, and I am proud of him. I do consider
you worth a dozen floggings, Bert; but I have no disposition to give
them to you."

Bert wrung his father's hand and rushed out into the rain. Cuff came
running to meet him, and Prince barked with pleasure at his approach.
Billy whistled and sung in his cage above, and old Snow's voice was
heard in the field close by.

Bert loved them and they knew it. It was some minutes, however, before
he noticed them now; and when he did, it was not in his accustomed merry
way.

"Just like the monitors at school," said he, seriously. "Making such a
fuss that a fellow can't go wrong, if he wants to." And he took Cuff up
in his lap, and patted Prince's shaggy coat.

Bert's monitors still watch him with affectionate interest; but never
again, I am happy to say, has he felt the least inclination to disturb
their midnight slumbers.

A MORNING THOUGHT

With every rising of the sun
Think of your life as just begun.

The past has shrivelled and buried deep,
All yesterdays. There let them sleep,

Nor seek to summon back one ghost
Of that innumerable host.

Concern yourself with but to-day,
Woo it, and teach it to obey

Your will and wish. Since time began
To-day has been the friend of man;

But in his blindness and his sorrow
He looks to yesterday and to-morrow.

[Illustration: "_Laid the pile of bills on the counting room desk_."]

THE TWO CLERKS

Boys are apt to think that their parents and teachers are too strict;
that they ought not to be obliged to get such perfect lessons, or to go
to Sabbath school, to be so punctual and so particular. They wonder why
they are not allowed a great many amusements and indulgences which they
would like so much.

"What's the use?" they often discontentedly ask.

Well, boys, there is a _great deal_ of use in being brought up right;
and the discipline which sometimes seems to you so hard, is precisely
what your parents see that you need in order to make you worth anything.
I will tell you an incident, to illustrate it, which has just come to my
knowledge.

William was the oldest child of a widowed mother, and she looked upon
him, under God, as her future staff and support. He was trained to
industrious habits, and in the fear of God. The day-school and Sabbath
school sel