less. The fact remained. He had blamed his own unoffending cat to shield him- WANTED, A HOUSE. self. Burying his head beneath the bedclothes, the little fellow sobbed himself into a restless sleep. The sound of voices roused him. 66 Yes, ma'am, he seems very feverish." "Do you think he is awake, nurse?" And then nurse's hand softly removed the clothes from his heated face. Recalled to his misery, Alfred sprang up to see his young mother bending over him with a look of pity, and his father standing in the background. With an effort he threw both arms around his neck. "Oh, mamma!" he sobbed, "I told a lie! It was I broke the vase, and not poor Kitty. Will God kill me, the way he killed Ananias?" Stooping down, Mrs. Trent took the penitent child in her arms, and in gentle tones showed him how sinful he had been, but yet that if he asked God He would forgive him for Christ's sake. The sorrowing child knelt with his young mother, and when they rose Alfred crept back to bed again, subdued indeed, but happy in the knowledge of full forgiveness. Alfred Trent has become a respected man of high standing now, but I think he has never forgotten his first untruth, and the misery and remorse his sin caused him. BY MRS. MARY B. C. SLADE. ANTED, a tenement down in the Parlour and dining-room, kitchen Chambers and library, cozy and pretty; days fall. "Tenement? Yes, ma'am." A nice Oh, when you see how the kindly Im maiden lady Smooths down her apron and smooths back her curls. mortals Smile on the children and welcome them so, She's on the side of-well, say forty- Maybe you'll wish you had opened your shady. "Tenement? Yes, but I hope you've no girls!" Two, ma'am. Oh! but for the skill of a painter, Just to portray what a look she assumed ! Then, while our hopes became fainter and fainter, Coldly and cruel she this way resumed : "Two girls? Why, madam, you can't be in earnest ; Rattling and chattering, giddy and gay; Singing and dancing, and " (then she grew sternest), "What's more than likely, ma'am, playing croquet!" Sadly we turned from the coveted quarters; Slowly we went to our home out of town; Round us we gathered our sons and our daughters Feeling condemned that they all were our own? No, sir! No, madam! you're grandly mistaken, If, by your tirade on juvenile noise, You can suppose, for one moment, you've shaken Our solid comfort, in girls and in boys. Good folks, we'll all move at last to a City Where little children are suffered to come. Maybe you'll think, at that day, more's the pity Into those mansions you cannot lead THE BOOK OF THANKS. FEEL so vexed and out of temper with Ben," said Mark, "that I really must "Do something in revenge?" inquired his cousin Cecilia. "No; look over my Book of Thanks." "What's that?" said Cecilia, as she saw him turning over the leaves of a copybook nearly full of writing in a round text hand. "Here it is," said Mark, and then read aloud, "March 8. Ben lent me his hat.' Here again: Jan. 4. When I lost my shilling, Ben made it up to me kindly.' Well," observed the boy, turning down the leaf, "Ben is a good boy, after all." "What do you note down in that book?" said Cecilia, looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. "All the kindnesses that are ever shown me; you would wonder how many they are. I find a great deal of good from marking them down. I do not forget them, as I might do if I only trusted to my memory; so I hope that I am not often ungrateful. And when I am cross or out of temper, I almost always feel good-humoured again if I only look over my book." New Jerusalem Messenger. some. THAT FOX: HIS ADVENTURES AND MIS ADVENTURES. FOUNDED ON FACT. BY MRS. McTIER. PART IV. OOTSTEPS and voices were heard! The fox made himself small, and crept into a pipe, lying patiently there till it was almost dusk. He saw the men bring in the horses and carry the pigs their supper, he watched the fowls by twos and threes drop out of the stable-yard off to their roosts, and such a powerful desire came over him to know where the henhouse was, he could bear his cramped position no longer; and though there was still a little light, he followed a hen, creeping so cunningly low, his wide brush gathered a little harvest of straws, it lay so flat along the ground; and just as he came round the corner he met-what do you think? their green and fiery sparks of fear and cousin," boldly answered the cunning are they all? I never heard of them before, and I am sure I know nothing about you. I can't see any resemblance to my family whatever ;" and she looked him all over, for cats can see better in the dark, you know, than you could. "Nonsense!" replied the fox; "you can't see me in this light. Look at my tail, and my ears; and my eyes are the exact same as yours." "No, I couldn't see a likeness in any light," grumbled the cat, You are more like my enemy, the dog in the kennel. You had better go away, even if you are a relation of mine; there is only mice for one." "Oh, I don't care a morsel for mice; you may eat them all, and welcome. Now don't be cross; I only want to be friends. Tell me where you live." "If you don't eat mice," replied Mrs. Belinda, "which settles the matter of your not being my cousin, I have no objection to be friends. I am the yard cat. I live in the outhouses; but I can take whatever I like in the house." "Do you ever get chickens or fowls?" asked the fox, eagerly-"live ones?" "No," answered the cat with scorn; "I always take them off the dish in the pantry, cooked. I wouldn't eat raw fowls, if they can be had cooked." "Well, do you ever get live rabbits?" inquired Sysyphus. Long ago he had once seen a little wild one the children had tamed, feeding in the lettuce-bed, but strictly guarded by four of the younger ones, for fear of him. "Rabbits-well, no. I could if I choose, but it is too much trouble going often to the mountains to hunt them, though just the other side of that wall there are nearly thirty tame ones, dreadfully fat and lazy, it would be quite easy to take any of them-too easy. I enjoy the sport of hard killing and the gamey flavour of rats and mice better, don't you?" "I hardly know," bashfully replied the pet fox. "I have been brought up peculiarly, and I never killed anything in my life." "What!" screamed the cat, "never killed anything? Oh, you silly Billy! where were you educated?" and she sat down and laughed till the fox was horribly ashamed of himself. You know how nasty it is when clever people our own size laugh at us when we don't know or can't do all they can. She laughed and laughed, but presently a great rattling of pails was heard. "There are the maids going to milk the cows," said the cat, getting up and turning to go. "I would advise you, if you don't know the dog-but perhaps you are a cousin of his, too—to get off before he is let out for the night, or he'll make short work of you." "Oh, please," entreated the pet fox, shivering in his thick coat, "I don't know anything about the dog; if you will only tell me where to hide to-night in this strange place I will do you a good turn some day." The cat looked all round in her grand ladylike style of one who has the right to give hospitality, scratched her ear with her right hind leg, and then said : "It is puzzling to know what can be done with you, you are such an uncomfortable size. Can you climb a ladder?" "I don't know," stammered the pet fox, "I never tried. I can run up and down stairs splendidly, and I think I could get up a ladder if you helped me." "You cowardly idiot!" she exclaimed. "Do you want Paddy to kill you with a pitchfork? Why, he would smell you the instant he came in." She could have scratched his head off, for she was dying for her supper of mice and new milk in the cowhouse. "Here's the way it is done." Before the fox knew she was going he saw her glaring down at him from the loft as cross as two sticks at his stupidity. "Oh, I say, do come down again and do it slower. I didn't see how you put |