id the
oak; "and the bellflower, and the dear little daisy." "We are here! we
are here!" chanted sweet low voices on all sides.

"But the pretty anemones, and the bed of lilies of the valley, and all
the flowers that bloomed so long ago,--would that they were here!" "We
are here! we are here!" was the answer, and it seemed to come from the
air above, as if they had fled upward first.

"Oh, this is too great happiness!" exclaimed the oak tree; and now he
felt that his own roots were loosening themselves from the earth. "This
is best of all," he said. "Now no bounds shall detain me. I can soar to
the heights of light and glory, and I have all my dear ones with me."

Such was the oak tree's Christmas dream. And all the while a mighty
storm swept the sea and land; the ocean rolled his heavy billows on the
shore, the tree cracked, and was rent and torn up by the roots at the
very moment when he dreamed that he was soaring to the skies.

Next day the sea was calm again, and a large vessel that had weathered
the storm hoisted all its flags for Merry Christmas. "The tree is
gone--the old oak tree, our beacon! How can its place ever be supplied?"
said the crew. This was the tree's funeral eulogium, while the Christmas
hymn re-echoed from the wood.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
(Adapted)

A PRAYER

The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and
duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter
and kind faces; let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go
blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds
weary and content and undishonoured; and grant us in the end the gift of
sleep.

R. L. STEVENSON

[Illustration: IN THE PASTURE]

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs, the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood
In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain i