upon the people, she went back to her father's castle.

-Adapted from Hans Andersen.

Definitions. Fountains, streams of water spouting into the air. The spouting is called playing.

Spell: palm, midst, danger, surface, covered, rushed, icebergs, loftier, churches, fountains, built, wonder, statue.

Are there really such creatures as mermaids? If you were to go to the bottom of the sea, what would you find there?

Read "The Forsaken Merman," in "Open Sesame," Vol. I.— Matthew Arnold. Extracts from "Undine."-Fouque. Extracts from "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea."―Jules Verne.

When the little children in Venice want to take a bath, they just go down to the front steps of the house and jump off and swim about in the street. Yesterday I saw a nurse standing on the front steps, holding one end of a cord, and the other end was tied to a little fellow who was swimming up the street.

When he went too far the woman pulled in the string and got her baby home again. Then I met another youngster, swimming in the street, whose mother had tied him to a post by the side of the

door, so that when he tried to swim away to see another boy who was tied to another door-post, up the street, he could n't, and they had to sing out to each other over the water.

Is not this a queer city? You are always in danger of running over some of the people and drowning them, for you go about in a boat instead of a carriage, and use an oar instead of a horse.

But it is ever so pretty, and the people, especially the children, are very bright, and gay, and handsome.

When you are sitting in your room at night, you hear some music under your window, and look out, and there is a boat with a man with a fiddle, and a woman with a voice, and they are serenading you. To be sure, they want some money when they are done, for everybody begs here, but they do it very prettily and are full of fun.

Tell Susie I did not see the queen this time. She was out of town. But ever so many noblemen and princes have sent to know how Toody was, and how she looked, and I have sent them all her love.

There must be lots of pleasant things to do at Andover, and I think you must have had a beautiful summer there.

Pretty soon now you will go back to Boston. Do go into my house when you get there and see if the doll and her baby are well and happy, but

do not carry them off; and make the music-box play a tune, and remember

Your affectionate uncle,

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

Spell: drawn, front, bath, Venice, carriage, nurse, especially, pulled, serenading, fiddle, Boston, young, oar.

Find Venice on the map. Write a letter to some one at home describing some place you have visited.

Read a description of Venice in "Footprints of Travel." - Ballou. Also, Longfellow's sonnet and other poems on Venice in "Poems of Places."

Copy and learn:

White phantom city, whose untrodden streets
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting
Shadows of palaces and strips of sky.

MAKING A VIRTUE OF NECESSITY.

A fox being caught in a trap was glad to save himself by leaving his tail behind him. Upon going among his friends he soon began to feel that the loss of his tail would bring disgrace upon him. But wishing to make the best of a bad matter, he called a meeting of the rest of the foxes and asked them if they would not all like to cut off their tails.

"You have no idea," said he, "of the ease and pleasure with which I now move about. A tail

is really a very useless and ugly thing to carry around, and it is strange we foxes have put up with it so long."

Upon this the oldest fox of them all stepped forward. "I think, my friend," said he, "that you would hardly ask us to cut off our tails if you saw any way of getting back your own. When we get into the same trouble that you did, we may think of parting with our tails, but not before."

A fox had fallen into a well and had been wondering for a long time how he might get out again.

Soon a goat came along and wanting to drink, asked the fox if the water was good, and if there was plenty of it.

The fox said, "Come down, come down, my friend. The water is so good that I can not drink enough of it, and there is plenty of it for both of us."

Upon this the goat leaped into the well, and the fox at once jumped upon his friend's back and sprang out, saying only to the goat, "If you had half as much brains as you have beard you would have looked before you leaped."

BEWARE OF FLATTERERS.

A crow was once eating a piece of cheese in A cunning fox saw her and set his wits. to work to get the cheese.

a tree.

"You are the prettiest bird I ever saw," called he. "How sweet your voice must be. Will you not sing me a song?"

The silly crow, flattered by these words, opened her mouth to sing, when down dropped the cheese into the mouth of the fox.

SOUR GRAPES.

A fox stole into a vineyard where some fine grapes were hanging high. He made many a spring and jump trying to reach them, but failed each time. At last he said, "Let who will, take them. They are no doubt sour." - Esop's Fables.

Spell: ease, idea, beard, brains, vineyard, leaped, virtue, doubt, stepped, goat, pleasure, flatterers, cheese, beware, necessity. What do you think of the fox in each of these fables? Tell something good about the fox.

Read, if accessible, the fable of "The Fox and the Stork." - Esop.