ful world, with its birds, its flowers, and its sunshine, is dark
without a loving heart to rest upon. Thank God for kind parents and a
happy home, 'Tis _you_ who are _rich_, Matty; pray for _poor_ Mabel.

THE BABY'S COMPLAINT.

Now, I suppose you think, because you never see me do anything but feed
and sleep, that I have a very nice time of it. Let me tell you that you
are mistaken, and that I am tormented half to death, although I never
say anything about it. How should you like every morning to have your
nose washed _up_, instead of _down_? How should you like to have a pin
put through your dress into your skin, and have to bear it all day till
your clothes were taken off at night? How should you like to be held so
near the fire that your eyes were half scorched out of your head, while
your nurse was reading a novel? How should you like to have a great fly
light on your nose, and not know how to take aim at him, with your
little, fat, useless fingers? How should you like to be left alone in
the room to take a nap, and have a great pussy jump into your cradle,
and sit staring at you with her great green eyes, till you were all of
a tremble? How should you like to reach out your hand for the pretty
bright candle, and find out that it was way across the room, instead of
close by? How should you like to tire yourself out crawling way across
the carpet, to pick up a pretty button or pin, and have it snatched
away, as soon as you begin to enjoy it? I tell you it is enough to ruin
any baby's temper. How should you like to have your mamma stay at a
party till you were as hungry as a little cub, and be left to the mercy
of a nurse, who trotted you up and down till every bone in your body
ached? How should you like, when your mamma dressed you up all pretty
to take the nice, fresh air, to spend the afternoon with your nurse in
some smoky kitchen, while she gossipped with one of her cronies? How
should you like to submit to have your toes tickled by all the little
children who insisted upon "seeing the baby's feet?" How should you
like to have a dreadful pain under your apron, and have everybody call
you "a little cross thing," when you couldn't speak to tell what was
the matter with you? How should you like to crawl to the top stair,
(just to look about a little,) and pitch heels over head from the top
to the bottom?

Oh, I can tell you it is no joke to be a baby! Such a thinking as we
keep up; and if we try to find