h, yes,' answered the gentleman, 'it will always be used by the
peasants--they cannot afford to pay railway fares, and I hope for their
sakes the monks at the Hospice yonder will still continue their good
offices, and not forsake the home and the refuges, as there is some talk
of their doing, now that the number of travellers on the road will be so
greatly diminished.'

'Of course,' said the boy eagerly, 'I have heard of the St. Bernard
monks, and their hospital and their dogs, and how they dig travellers
out of the snow, and so on; but what are refuges, please? I never heard
of them.'

'They are also shelters for travellers, a sort of off-shoot from the
parent-house at the top of the Pass. It is fifteen miles from the valley
to the Hospice, and in winter-time the road is often blocked by snow,
and if it were not for these refuge houses, where food and warmth is
freely given to all comers, many a poor traveller would perish in the
snow.'

* * * * *

Napoleon's fame will have to live without the help of the great road
which he built to keep it alive. Though many obstacles have been met
with, including a break-down caused by an underground spring, when there
were only a few yards between the borings from each end, the tunnel is
at last practically finished, and it is hoped that in 1905, a hundred
years after Napoleon made his road, it will be open for railway traffic.

S. C.

THE BAT AND THE BALL.

'I'm quite knocked up!' exclaimed the Ball,
While mounting to the skies;
'I know I shall have such a fall
After this dreadful rise.
I speak no ill of any one,
However they provoke,
But many things the Bat has done
Are something past a joke.'

'Just watch that Ball, how high he goes,'
The Bat exclaimed with glee,
'But yet he never says he owes
His rise in life to me.
No, no, that's not his way at all;
And though I do my best,
His graceless growls at every fall
Are something past a jest.'

JOHN LEA.

WITHOUT A HEN TO BUY STAMPS.

A native from the shores of Lake Nyasa, in Central Africa, lately
enlisted in the King's 2nd African Regiment, and went off to the war in
Somaliland.

He had had some education in the Mission School in his own village, and
by-and-by sent home a very good letter describing his work, and how he
learnt signalling, and so on; and then he ended up with this path