o himself all the way the title of the book he was to try
to get in exchange.

Books had hitherto meant nothing but lessons to Fred, and he was not
more keen upon those than most other boys; but when he saw the rows of
volumes on the library shelves, and was told by the clerk in charge to
go and find the one he wanted, he woke up to the knowledge that they
might mean something more.

He opened one, at random; it was full of pictures. He began to read; it
was about strange places and people: about the dense forests and great
rivers of some far-off land, and the wonderful creatures--birds, beasts
and fishes--to be found there.

The clock struck twelve--it was a good thing for Fred that the sound was
loud enough to startle him--he put back the volume of travels with a
sigh of regret, found, with some trouble, the book Mrs. Marshall wanted,
and ran all the way home to make up for lost time.

Though he would have been too shy to talk about them, his mind was full
of the wonders of which he had been reading. 'I never knew there were
such things; it's like--it's like having a new world to look at! I wish
I could read some more; but perhaps Mrs. Marshall won't ever ask me to
go again,' he thought.

Mrs. Marshall, however, did more than that. 'Why don't you get your
mother to let you have a library ticket, Fred?' she asked, when Fred,
flushed and breathless after his run, presented himself before her.

'Me! Why, I couldn't, Mrs. Marshall; I'm not grown up,' said the little
boy, wistfully.

'Oh, that doesn't matter in the least,' Mrs. Marshall assured him.
'Come now, Fred,' she added, 'I owe you a good turn; I'll do my best to
get you a ticket.'

Mrs. Marshall was as good as her word, and Fred, the proud possessor of
a ticket of his own, was soon a regular visitor to the library. He had
come to the end of his dull days, for, as the poet truly says:

'Books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good,'

and Fred had found it out.

C. J. B.

THE GIANT OF THE TREASURE CAVES.

(_Continued from page 51._)

The close bond which united the families of the Moat House and Begbie
Hall, and the daily intercourse, had thrown the two governesses much
together. Happily for both, their acquaintance had grown into friendship
and affection. Not only did they meet during the walks taken with their
pupils, but Estelle shared with her cousins in Miss Leigh's lessons in
arithmetic an