g must be set millions of years, perhaps hundreds of millions of
years, ago. He has not yet, indeed, reached that airless and waterless
condition, that extremity of internal cold, or in fact that utter
unfitness to support any kind of life, which would seem to prevail
in the moon. The planet of war in some respects resembles a desolate
battle-field, and I fancy that there is not a single region of the
earth now inhabited by man which is not infinitely more comfortable as
an abode of life than the most favored regions of Mars at the present
time would be for creatures like ourselves.

But there are other subjects besides astronomy that the readers of the
ST. NICHOLAS want to learn about. I do not wish you to have to say to
me what a little daughter of mine said the other day. She had asked me
several questions about the sun, and after I had answered them I went
on to tell her several things which she had not asked. She listened
patiently for quite a long time,--fully five minutes, I really
believe,--and then she said: "Don't you think, papa, that that's
enough about the sun? Come and play with us on the lawn." So, as it
was holiday time, we went and played in the sun, instead of talking
about him.

* * * * *

A DOMESTIC TRAGEDY--IN TWO PARTS.

[Illustration: PART I.]

"MOTHER! from this moment, behold me, my own master!
Yes, madam, I am old enough. I mean just what I say."

[Illustration: PART II.]

AND, but for a sudden and unforeseen disaster,
The puppy might have kept his resolution to this day.

* * * * *

THE STICKLEBACK BELL-RINGERS

BY C. F. HOLDER.

A certain pond in the country was once peopled with a number of
turtles, frogs, and fishes which I came to consider my pets, and
which at last grew so tame that I fed them from my hands. Among them,
however, were four or five little sticklebacks that lived under the
shade of a big willow, and these were so quarrelsome that I generally
fed them apart from the rest. But sometimes all met, and then the
feast usually was ended by the death of a minnow. For, shocking to
say, whenever there was a dispute for the food, some one of the little
fishes was almost sure to be devoured by the hungry sticklebacks.

These stickleback-and-minnow combats, after a while, came to be of
daily occurrence, and the reason for this was a singular one, which I
must explain.

Under the willow