22._)

[Illustration: "She found 'la mere Bricolin' sitting with Mrs.
Wright."]

[Illustration: "The promise of a thousand songs."]

THE SINGERS YET TO BE.

Oh, touch them not, the loving toil
Of wild birds fair; he surely wrongs
Both Heaven and earth who seeks to spoil
The promise of a thousand songs.

Think! in these fragile caskets lie
The unborn singers who will give
Day-long their sweetest harmony
From dawn until the quiet eve--

The choristers, whose morning praise
Is one glad psalm of hope and joy,
Long, long before their heads upraise
Each sleeping, dreamy girl and boy.

Grey larks, how often I have heard
You singing in the golden noon,
Until my heart within me stirred
To thank you for your music's boon.

Yet sweeter still than all the rest,
The last clear hymn at eventide,
When, dropping to each well-hid nest,
You gaze to where the sun has died.

Faced to the splendid purple West,
You pour full-throated forth a lay,
Giving to God and man your best,
As come the shadows soft and grey.

So touch it not, this present home
Of future singers: pass along--
They'll soon, from out the sky's great dome,
Repay your gentleness with song.

CAUGHT BY A TREE.

A natural history student was one afternoon, during a prolonged drought,
hunting for ferns in a dense wood. Towards evening, it grew suddenly
dark, and a few drops of rain gave warning that a storm was coming. At
that moment, the student's eye fell upon a big, hollow tree-trunk on the
ground.

Striking a match, the man peered within, and saw, as he thought, a
convenient place of shelter. With feet foremost and arms pressed closely
to his side, he wormed himself into the log.

Presently the rain came down in torrents, and the student congratulated
himself on having found so snug a shelter.

Fatigued with his long tramp, he fell asleep. How long he slept he did
not know, but by-and-by he was awakened by a sharp pain in his head, and
a feeling of cramp in his whole body. The rain was still falling, the
darkness was intense. The bodily discomfort was, of course, due to the
man's cramped position; the pain in his head was caused by a continual
drip of water from above on to his forehead.

He drew his head back out of the way of the drops, and, in spite of his
uncomfortable position, actually fell asleep again! But the next time he
awoke, the pain