for Mrs. Edgworth. An accident on the track claimed everybody's attention. Quick as thought that hateful loaf was under the shawl, and with wildly beating heart and trembling limbs she hurried from the building.

"At last! At last!" she cried exultingly. But no! a policeman's quick eye had seen that hasty snatch and frantic hiding. As she went down the steps he touched her shoulder. She looked up in affright. “Had someone seen her after all ?"

"What is that you have under your shawl, please," asked the officer.

Poor woman! She was horrorstricken. "Would she be arrested for stealing? Would she have to show that bread and own she had baked it, upon a witness stand? What should she do?"

"It's some bread I baked and brought here," she answered tremblingly. "I'm going home and I thought I'd take it with me."

66

Very well, let me see it and the entry tag," he answered, and seeing there was no escape, she did so.

He took the tag and ordered her to come with him to the secretary's desk.

She hid the loaf again and went. The secretary recognized her, and, begging her pardon, the officer set her at liberty.

More frantic after this mishap than before, she hurried toward the gate. "To any point of the city for only ten cents," fell on her ears, and she saw the open door of a hack near her. She would be safe from observation in there and get home sooner. Climbing in she dropped exhausted

into the seat.

The hack was an old dilapidated affair with a long seat on either side. She would hardly have risked herself in it if she had been calm, but now it was "anywhere, anywhere out of sight" with her.

The hack filled up quickly. The president of the Fair Association took his place opposite Mrs. Edgworth. Presently the vehicle started cityward, swaying and rocking under its load.

Mrs. Edgworth had her bread covered and began to breath more easily. The president lifted his stiff hat in recognition, and hoped she had enjoyed the fair.

Mrs. Edgworth's smile was rather sad, but she replied that "It was worth going to see."

"Yes, indeed," returned the genteman. "We may flatter ourselves that our fair has been a success in every particular."

"Except one," thought his listener as she hugged her bread.

They were outside the gate now, and the teams were more numerous. As they passed another hack bound for the grounds, the driver turned a trifle too far out of the road; one wheel slipped off a little crossing into a ditch; as the weight of the hack came down it gave way and over they

went.

The inside was so narrow and so crowded that the passengers had little chance to save themselves. Mrs. Edgworth was on the upper side. When she felt the hack going over even the memory of that loaf went from her in her fright, and she threw up her hands and screamed.

The hack was old and rotten and like the "one hoss shay" it went to pieces all at once. In one awful moment the shrieking passengers were thrown in a stunned and writhing heap. Those who recovered first crawled out from the mass of debris and arms and legs and bodies that held them down.

When Mrs. Edgworth came to herself she was being lifted up by the rescuers. She saw a man walking off with her hat on his boot, and told

someone to get it. As her senses grew clearer she thought of her bread. Where was that tormenting burden now?

She saw the president stoop, and as her eyes followed his action, she saw him take up his ruined hat and take from it a crushed loaf. Even its hardness had given way in the general crush. He put his hat on in a dazed way and dropped the bread. Mrs. Edgworth started for it instinctively, but drew back.

"Let it go. It was past recognition, or would be soon, and had caused her so much trouble." She gave a sigh of relief that she was rid of it at last.

They had seated her upon a part of the wreck, and not feeling sufficiently recovered to rise yet, she sat there looking about her.

Her eyes wandered back to the president's hat after a while, and as he lifted it in a nervous way, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, she saw a yellow ooze drip from the inside of the crown and run down his face.

"Cora's pie!" she groaned, and wondered when her afflictions would

cease.

The president used his handker. chief more diligently than before. Either the sense of smell or the slimy mixture warned him something was amiss, and he took off his hat and looked into it. The greater portion of the pie, however, adhered to his hair. As he stood bewildered, picking the crumbs and wiping the liquid from his hat, the crowd discovered his mishap. Such a shout went up. A president crowned with lemon pie! For a few excited moments he forgot all about the fair and his dignity as its chief officer; forgot everything in his frantic endeavor to rid his head and face of the sticky, slimy substance that covered them.

Even Mrs. Edgworth laughed at the sight, despite her sense of guilt and misery.

She reached home at last. As she sank exhausted upon her bed, she said with all the emphasis which her failing strength was capable,

"If I ever take anything to a fair again, I hope some one will- -" but language failed her.

AUTUMN LEAVES.

The leaves of autumn are beginning to fade and fall, although without the aid of the still kindly-delaying frosts. It seems not long since we watched their gradual unfolding, in tufts of tender green. The spring birds sang sweetly then upon the budding boughs, their dark plumage contrasting with the scarlet flowers of the maple, the graceful tassels of the oak. The young leaves of the hickory burst from their calyx like the petals of an emerald flower; and as the season advanced, the sycamore shook out its broad foliage to the suo, and the sumac veiled its harsh outline in floating and feathery plumes. And when at length the June roses blossomed by the wayside, the forest stood crowned and robed in its pomp of summer green.

But the leaves whose shadow was so welcome served not for coolness

and drapery alone. Each of our graceful visitors had its modicum of work to do. Fed by the branches they adorned, they in turn laid up a store of nutriment for the present trunk. They elaborated its juices, and sent them back enriched by nourishment imbibed from the surrounding air. They imprisoned the sunshine in the delicate cells, and sent its vitalizing influence to the roots it never saw. They watched all night long beneath the stars, drinking in the "sweet influences of the Pleiades," with the moonlight

and the dew. They nursed the young buds cradled at their feet, till, rocked by the winds and lulled by the song of new fledged birds, they grew healthful and round, the robust heirs of the developed year. They watched over the ripening fruit, screening it from the too fervid rays of noon, and breaking the force and fury of the

storm.

But now their benignant ministry is closed. They can no longer serve the children they have fostered, nor the parent that gave them birth. Their small house-keeping accounts are balanced for the year; their graceful task is done; and so, donning their fairest robes, and kissing the strong arms that have sustained them so faithfully, one by one and in si lence they steal to their place of rest. Go to the orchards and see, wherever spring frosts have not blighted the season's hope, how the boughs bend above the treasures they have lost, while on the turf beneath them

the

"Like living coals, the apples

very

Burn among the withered leaves." Go to the woodland walks, and you will find them already strewn as if for expected guests; lightly carpeted with leaves of pale yellow and green, with crimson veins. Go to the cem etery and see how the bright creatures have chosen their graves among fairest of our own, and, reversing the pathetic nursery legend, have covered the robins whose wings are folded, with a picturesque and perishable pall. And even here their mission is a kind one, for not even the frailest leaf "dieth for itself." Its dust shall yet bloom in anemones and violets, and the crimson of the maple shall re-appear on the cheek of the peach. Verily, "we do all fade as a leaf," but the thought should never give us pain. Like cur sisters of the summer, we should

spend our lives in ministries of beauty, and leave a blessing behind us as we pass.

EMERY.

This substance is found in shapeless granular masses, at the base of mountains, in several of the islands of the Grecian Archipelago. The chief supply is obtained from the island of Naxos, at Cape Emeri, whence its name. A considerable quantity, however, is procured from the neighborhood of Smyrna, the East Indies, and in some mines in Saxony. In Jersey and our country small quantities of it are occasionally found. Emery is a greyish black, or brown, opaque mineral, with a glistening luster and an uneven fracture, and is distinguished by its extreme hardness, inferior only to that of the diamond. In order to prepare emery for use, it is first crushed under heavy iron stampers, then ground in steel mills, and mixed with water; the coarser particles having been allowed to subside, the water is poured off with the finer portions; these after a time sink, and are collected for use. Sometimes the emery is burnt or calcined for the purpose of enabling it to be reduced to powder with less labor. The use of emery depends its extreme hardness, which enupon ables it, when in a state of fine powder, to be used by lapidaries for grinding and polishing precious stones; by cutlers, in finishing steel instruments; by opticians, for polishing glasses, etc. Sprinkled over paper or stout calico, which has been previously covered with a layer of glue, it forms emery paper or cloth; this is much employed in cleaning iron instruments and articles of domestic

use.

into superior polishing wheels by It has recently been converted

combining it with india-rubber mixtures and vulcanized.