ds which
seemed to have a magical effect upon both heart and purse-strings.

"Let us not deprive ourselves of the comforts of life," she would
often say, "nor grudge our children the innocent pleasures natural to
youth, for the purpose of laying up for them the wealth that is, too
often, a curse rather than a blessing."

AN INFINITE GIVER.

Think you, when the stars are glinting,
Or the moonlight's shimmering gleam
Paints the water's rippled surface
With a coat of silvered sheen--
Think you then that God, the Painter,
Shows his masterpiece divine?
That he will not hang another
Of such beauty on the line?

Think you, when the air is trembling
With the birds' exultant song,
And the blossoms, mutely fragrant,
Strive the anthem to prolong--
Think you then that their Creator,
At the signal of his word,
Fills the earth with such sweet music
As shall ne'er again be heard?

He will never send a blessing
But have greater ones in store,
And each oft recurring kindness
Is an earnest of still more.
If the earth seems full of glory
As his purposes unfold,
There is still a better country--
And the half has not been told!

"MY HOUSE" AND "OUR HOUSE."

These houses are opposite each other in a beautiful suburban town. "My
house" is large and handsome, with a cupola, and has a rich lawn
before it. It is surrounded by a broad piazza, and graced and shaded
by ancestral elms and huge button-wood trees. Its barns and stables
are large and well-filled; its orchards are gorgeous with fruit, in
the season, and the fields around it seem alive with golden grain that
waves in the wind. Everything about the place tells of long-continued
prosperity. The rich old squire who lives there rides about with fine
horses, and talks a great deal to his neighbors about "my house, my
orchards, and my horses."

His wife is evidently the lady of the region. She was a model
housekeeper and dairywoman in the days when they worked the farm, and
is now an oracle on many questions. She, too, talks of "my house, my
horses, and my estate."

These persons each brought property to the other, and the two
interests have, unfortunately, never flowed together and formed one
estate as they should have done; so there are always two separate
interests in the house.

Of course the property belongs, legally, to both; but as