uses
already. There is over four million dollars' worth of lace sold every
year in Belgium alone."

Ellen thought she should never see a piece of nice lace without
thinking of these wonderful lace-makers, who produce such delicate
work and yet are paid so little for it; and while she was thus
thinking over the matter, mamma went quietly on with her sewing.

[Illustration: LACE-MAKERS.]

HELP YOURSELVES.

Many boys and girls make a failure in life because they do not learn
to help themselves. They depend on father and mother even to hang up
their hats and to find their playthings. When they become men and
women, they will depend on husbands and wives to do the same thing. "A
nail to hang a hat on," said an old man of eighty years, "is worth
everything to a boy." He had been "through the mill," as people say,
so that he knew. His mother had a nail for him when he was a boy--"a
nail to hang his hat on," and nothing else. It was "Henry's nail" from
January to January, year in and out, and no other member of the family
was allowed to appropriate it for any purpose whatever. If the broom
by chance was hung thereon, or an apron or coat, it was soon removed,
because that nail was "to hang Henry's hat on." And that nail did much
for Henry; it helped make him what he was in manhood--a careful,
systematic, orderly man, at home and abroad, on his farm and in his
house. He never wanted another to do what he could do for himself.

Young folks are apt to think that certain things, good in themselves,
are not honorable. To be a blacksmith or a bootmaker, to work on a
farm or drive a team, is beneath their dignity, as compared with being
a merchant, or practising medicine or law. This is PRIDE, an enemy to
success and happiness. No _necessary_ labor is discreditable. It is
never dishonorable to be _useful_. It is beneath no one's dignity to
earn bread by the sweat of the brow. When boys who have such false
notions of dignity become men, they are ashamed to help themselves as
they ought, and for want of this quality they live and die unhonored.
Trying to save their dignity, they lose it.

Here is a fact we have from a very successful merchant. When he began
business for himself, he carried his wares from shop to shop. At
length his business increased to such an extent, that he hired a room
at the Marlboro' Hotel, in Boston, during the business season, and
thither the merchants, having been duly notified, would repair to ma