voice of Nature speak,
Teaching all the self-same lesson,
"As you sow so shall you reap."

Though there's pardon for each sinner
In God's mercy vast and mild,
Yet the law that governs Nature,
Governs e'en fair Nature's child.

WHY HE DIDN'T SMOKE.

The son of Mr. Jeremy Lord, aged fourteen, was spending the afternoon
with one of his young friends, and his stay was prolonged into the
evening, during which some male friends of the family dropped in. The
boys withdrew into the recess of the bay window, at the end of the
room, and the men went on chatting about the most important matters of
the day, politics, etc. Still apparently entertaining each other, the
two boys yet kept their ears open, as boys will, and, taking their cue
from the sentiments expressed by their elders, indorsed one or the
other as they happened to agree with them.

"Gentlemen, will you smoke?" asked Mr. Benedict, the host. A
simultaneous "Thank you," went round, and a smile of satisfaction
lighted all faces but one. Not that he was gloomy, or a drawback on
the rest, but his smile was not one of assent. A box of cigars was
soon forthcoming, costly and fragrant, as the word goes.

"Fine cigar," said one, as he held it to his nose, before lighting.
"What, Linton, you don't smoke?" "I'm happy to say I do not," was the
firm rejoinder.

"Well, now, you look like a smoking man, jolly, care free, and all
that. I'm quite surprised," said another.

"We are hardly doing right, are we," asked a rubicund-visaged man, who
puffed away heartily "to smoke in the parlor? I condone that much to
my wife's dislike of the weed. She makes a great ado about the
curtains, you know."

"For my part, that's a matter I don't trouble myself about," said the
host, broadly. "There's no room in this house too good for me and my
friends to smoke in. My wife has always understood that, and she
yields, of course."

"But you don't know how it chokes her," said young Hal Benedict. "Yes,
indeed, it gets all through the house, you know, and she almost always
goes into Aunt Nellie's when there are two or three smoking. There she
goes now," he added, as the front door closed.

"Why, it's absolutely driving her out of the house, isn't it?" asked
Johnny. "Too bad!"

"Why don't you smoke, Dalton?" queried one of the party. "'Fraid of
it? Given it up lately? It don't agree with some constitutions."

"Well, if you want to know why I don't smo