much I love them and all my kind friends at my own home, and you know too, there is scarcely a thing I see, from the first thing in the morning to the last at night, that it does not in some way or other bring them to my mind, and how ever busy I may be about your lessons and other things, still they are never altogether absent from it."

"Oh, yes," exclaimed the little girls affectionately, "we know that very well. Have we not heard you talk about them in the evenings and many other times when there was nobody else by, till we can tell exactly what they are both like, and know every room in the house they live in, and the little one that was once yours? And do we not still love poor old Nursey." "I thought of her," said Ellen, “very often this evening, and how much she would have liked Dame Smith, yet I did not say so at the time, and we only talk of her now and then; and won't it be just the same when you go home for the holidays, and we are with Papa in Wales, we shall have Papa to talk to then, and all the pretty things we see to think about, but I am sure we shall often, I can't say how often, think of you dear Miss Ashton too, and try to remember what you would like us to do if you were by." 'Well, my dears," said Miss Ashton, kissing them very kindly, "I am sure that is all I shall wish for, for that is the best proof you can give me that you both think of me and love me, only you must try, I must try too, according to Willie's text, to remember the Great Friend who is always 'between' all other friends that truly love Him when they are parted; then our hearts will be His Book, and the thought of Him, the flower between the leaves at which they will always open." DORA GREENWELL.

Golborne Rectory, Warrington.

THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD.

THEY grew in beauty, side by side,
They filled one home with glee;
Their graves are severed, far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeping brow,

She had each folded flower in sight.
Where are those dreamers now.

One, 'midst the forests of the west,
By a dark stream is laid-

The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one,
He lies where pearls lie deep;
He was the loved of all, yet none
O'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are dressed

Above the noble slain;

He wrapt his colours round his breast,
On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one-o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fanned;

She faded 'midst Italian flowers-
The last of that bright band.

And parted thus they rest, who played
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they prayed
Around one parent knee.

They that with smiles lit up the hall,

And cheered with song the hearth

Alas! for love, if thou wert all,

And nought beyond, this earth.

MRS. HEMANS.

COMING HOME FROM SCHOOL.

In a part of the south coast of England, well known to tourists as presenting peculiar beauties of scenery, stands the little village of Seabourne. It is a most picturesque spot, and being situated at the mouth of a narrow creek, it offers great facilities in the way of boat-building, which business is carried on there to some extent. The village, or rather hamlet, which contains only about a hundred inhabitants, most of whom are of the very poorest class, is distant nearly two miles from the Church at Woodside, to which parish it belongs. This of course is a great inconvenience to the poor people at Seabourne, besides which, they have no good school near them, so that all the children, when they have learnt as much as can be taught them at a little dame-school, are obliged, if they wish to gain more instruction, to seek it at the National School, at Milford, a town about three miles distant from their home. I think this description will make you understand better the story I am going to tell you about two little girls, named Jessie and Alice Green, the children of a poor but honest and industrious boat-builder, at Seabourne. They were the two eldest of a large family, and being generally good, willing little girls, were of great use to their mother. One fine spring evening, in the year in which my story begins, Jessie and Alice, having helped to wash the tea

Just as they

things and put the little ones to bed, went down to the shore to meet their father coming from his work. reached the beach, Thomas Green had packed up his tools, and leaving the boat on which he had been employed, came forward to greet his children. "O, father," exclaimed Jessie as he approached, "if you are not in a great hurry for your supper, will you walk with us a little way along the shore? It is such a beautiful evening, and the tide is up, and it all looks so pretty."

"Well, my child," said her father, "I will come a little way, but it must not be far, or your mother will wonder what has become of us."

So the three had a pleasant walk along the shore, and the little girls were very happy and merry, and as they were returning, Jessie began to repeat to her father some pretty hymns she had learnt, and which she knew he liked to hear. When she had finished, her father did not speak for some minutes, and the children wondered what he was thinking of; at last he said,-" Jessie, you are a good girl to learn, and it is a pity you should not have better schooling than you can get here; how should you like to go to school at Milford ?"

"O, father," exclaimed Jessie, and her eyes sparkled with pleasure, "how nice that would be! O, may I really go?" "And me too," cried Alice, "O, let me go too, please father."

"Well," said Green, "we will see what mother says about it," and they hastened on to the cottage.

Mrs. Green did not at first quite approve of the plan, she said, truly enough, that it was a long way for them to go alone,

that Jessie was not very strong, and that they were both still

quite young.

But Jessie urged in reply that she was nearly eleven years old, that she had been quite well for a long time, and that in two or three years she must go out to service, and then there would be no more chance of schooling. Alice also begged hard to be allowed to go, and as she was, though a year younger, nearly as tall and quite as stout and strong as her sister, there seemed no reason she should not go too.

"But you know, Alice," said Mrs. Green, "that you are much more backward in your learning than Jessie, so I think you will do very well here for the present."

"O don't say that, please, mother," cried Alice, "if I go to Milford, I promise you I will be very good at my book, and I know Jessie would like me to go with her."

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Yes," said Jessie, "I hope Alice may go with me for company, for there are no other girls go from here, only some boys, and mother would not like me to walk with them."

Mrs. Green now put a stop to the conversation by desiring the children to go to bed, and promised to talk the matter over with their father. So the little girls went up stairs, both declaring that they should not sleep all night for thinking of Milford school, but in this they were very much mistaken, for when, after saying their prayers attentively, they laid down in bed, they were both sound asleep in less than five minutes.

The next morning at breakfast, however, they were more eager than ever to know what had been settled for them, and highly delighted they were when their father told them that they should both begin going to Milford school the following week. "But there is one thing I do not like in it,” said