EDNA AND HER BOYS

She resigned her little fur-slippered foot for the twins to cuddle-the rosy, fat, good-tempered twins, rolling about like Newfoundland puppies on the hearth-rug-laid one hand on Bob's light curls, suffered Will to seize the other, and leaned her head against the tall shoulder of her eldest son, who petted his mother just as if she had been a beautiful young lady. Thus, "subdivided," as she called it, Edna stood among her five sons; and any stranger observing her might have thought she had never a care. But such a perfect life is impossible; and the long gap of years that there was between Robert and the twins, together with one little curl-that, wrapped in silver paper, lay always at the bottom of the mother's housekeeping purse-could have told a different tale.

However, this was her own secret, hidden in her heart. When with her children, she was as merry as any one of them all. Come now," said she, "you are such good boys, and give up cheerfully your pleasures, not because mother wishes it, but because it is right—"

"And also because mother wishes it," lovingly remarked Julius.

"Well, well, I accept it as such, and in return I'll make you all a handsome present-of my whole afternoon." Here uprose a shout of delight, for every one knew that the most valuable gift their mother could bestow on them was her time, always so well filled up, and her bright, blithe, pleasant company. "It is settled then, boys. Now decide. Where will you take me to? Only it should be some nice warm place. Mother cannot stand the cold quite as you boys do. You must remember she is not so young as she used to be."

"She is she is!" cried the sons in indignant love; and the eldest pressed her to his warm young breast almost with tears in his eyes. That deep affection -almost a passion-which sometimes exists between an eldest son and his mother, was evidently very strong here.

"I know what place mamma would like best-next best to a run into the country, where, of course, we can't go now-I propose the National Gallery." Which was rather good of Bob, who, of himself, did not care two-pence for pictures; and when the others seconded the motion, and it was carried unanimously, his mother smiled a special "Thank you" to him, which raised the lad's spirits exceedingly.

It was a lively walk through the Christmas streets, bright with holly and evergreens, and resplendent with every luxury that the shops could offer to Christmas purchasers. But Edna's boys bought nothing, and asked for nothing. They and she looked at all these treasures with delighted but unenvious eyes. They had been brought up as a poor man's children, even as she was a poor man's wife-educated from boyhood in that noble self-denial which scorns to crave anything which it cannot justly have. There was less need for carefulness now, and every time the mother looked at them-the five jewels of her matron's crown-she thanked God that they would never be dropped into the dust of poverty; that, humanly speaking, there would be enough forthcoming, both

money and influence, all of their father's own righteous earning, to set them fairly afloat in the world, before William and she lay their heads together in the quiet sleep after toil-of which she began to think perhaps a little more than she used to do, years ago. Yet when the boys would stop her before tempting jewelers' or linen-drapers' shops, making her say what she liked best, Edna would answer to each boy's question as to what he would give her "when he got rich":

"Nothing, my darling, nothing. I think your father and I are the richest and happiest people in all this world."-Miss Mulock.

Your wife cannot make a good man of your son unless you help her. Your example is more potent than anything you can say or do towards molding his character. Teach him to think it manly to be pure-aye, pure as a woman—and as gentle. True courage and gentleness always go hand in hand..

The bravest are the tenderest,

The loving are the daring.

Give him Bayard, the "knight without fear and without reproach," and Galahad, the "stainless knight of Arthur's Table Round," for models. As he

grows up, seek to be his confidant and adviser in his love affairs, as well as in his business matters. Think tenderly of the girl who is to be his wife. Try to preserve in him for her sake, for his own, for his future home's sake, the virtues you and their mother would not part with in your own daughters for all the gold of the Klondike. A boy has as much right to be trained up to purity of character as a girl-though we do not seem to think so always.-Robert Goodloe Harper.

HOW TO RAISE BOYS

Don't you, each one of you, know some man (I am sorry to say, perhaps more often some woman), who gives life an unhealthy turn for children by trying to spare them in the present the very things which would train them to do strong work in the future? Such conduct is not kindness. It is shortsightedness and selfishness; it means merely that the man or woman shrinks from the little inconveniences, to himself or herself, of making the child fit itself to be a good and strong man or woman hereafter. There should be the deepest and truest love for their children in the hearts of all fathers and mothers. Without such love there is nothing but black despair for the family; but the love must respect both itself and the one beloved. It is not true love to invite future disaster by weak indulgence for the moment.

What is true affection for a boy? To bring him up so that nothing rough ever touches him, and at twenty-one turn him out into the world with a moral nature that turns black and blue in great bruises at the least shock from any one of the forces of evil with which he is bound to come in contact? Is that kindness? Indeed, it is not. Bring up your boys with both love and wisdom; and turn them out as men, strong limbed, clear eyed, stout hearted, clean minded, able to hold their own in this great world of work and strife and ceaseless effort.

A BED IN A HAY LOFT

He lived in a low room over a coach-house.

There was hay at his feet and hay at his head, piled up in great trusses to the very roof. Indeed, it was sometimes only through a little lane with several turnings, which looked as if it had been sawn out for him, that he could reach his bed at all. For the stock of hay was of course always in a state either of slow ebb or of sudden flow. Sometimes the whole space of the loft, with the little panes in the roof for the stars to look in, would lie open before his open eyes as he lay in bed; sometimes a yellow wall of sweet-smelling fibres closed up his view at the distance of half a yard. Sometimes, when his mother had undressed him in her room, and told him to trot away to bed by himself, he would creep into the heart of the hay, and lie there thinking how cold it was outside in the wind, and how warm it was inside there in his bed, and how he could go to it when he pleased, only he wouldn't just yet, he would get a little.

colder first. And ever as he grew colder, his bed would grow warmer, till at last he would scramble out of the hay, shoot like an arrow into his bed, cover himself up, and snuggle down, thinking what a happy boy he was.

THE MARRIAGE RELATION

Remember that this relation may soon end. Spare all the hard words; omit all the slights, for before long there may be a hearse standing at your door that will take away out of your presence the best friend you have on earth, and the richest boon which God in his omnipotence and infinity has capacity to bestow a good wife. If the wife go, that desolates all the house and all the heart and all the world. The silences are so appalling when her voice is still; the vacancies are so ghastly. The little child runs around the room calling for mother who will not come, and at night asks for a drink, saying, "No, no, I want mother to bring it!" Reminiscences rush on the heart like a mountain torrent over which a cloud has burst. Her jewels, her books, her pictures, her dresses, some of them suggestive of banquet and some of burial, put into the trunk whose lid comes down with heavy thud as much as to say, "Dead!" The morning dead. The night dead. The air dead. The world dead.

Oh, man, if in that hour you think of any unkind words uttered, you would be willing to pay in red coin of blood, every drop from your heart, if you could buy back the unkind words, but they will not come back. Words gone from the lips do not fly in circles like doves coming back to their cote, but in a straight line, a million miles a minute across the eternities. They never come back.-T. De Witt Talmage.

SPIRITUAL FELLOWSHIP

Spiritual fellowship is essential to real conjugal happiness. I have never known a perfect marriage without this. A fair amount of happiness can, of course, be obtained without such sympathy; but the cup is never full. It is a vain delusion to enter on the married state with the hope of leading your husband or your wife to become a Christian. This matter ought to be settled before the affections are engaged; it is rarely settled after. Who can picture the joys of united love to God on the part of both husband and wife? Earth has no fairer sight to show than that of a Christian bride or bridegroom, pledging their troth one to the other. Christ is there to ratify the vows.

-S. Pearson, M.A.

Books of travel and adventure will probably be attractive to your servant, If she is neat and careful, you can safely give her permission to take books from your library. In too many cases the servant's evenings after her work is finished are the gloomiest hours in her day, because she must sit alone in her room or the kitchen. A good, entertaining book for such hours will make her happier and more contented.-Frank A. De Puy.

OUR HEROES

Here's a hand to the boy who has courage
To do what he knows to be right.
When he falls in the way of temptation,
He has a hard battle to fight.

Who strives against self and his comrades
Will find a most powerful foe.

All honor to him if he conquers.

A cheer for the boy who says "No!"
There's many a battle fought daily
The world knows nothing about.
There's many a brave little soldier
Whose strength put a legion to rout.
And he who fights single-handed
Is more of a hero, I say,

Than he who leads soldiers to battle
And conquers by arms in the fray.
Be steadfast, my boy, when you're tempted,
To do what you know to be right.
Stand firm by the colors of manhood
And you will o'ercome in the fight.
"The right," be your battle cry ever

In waging the warfare of life,

And God, who knows who are the heroes,
Will give you the strength for the strife.
-Phoebe Cary.

BROTHER AND SISTER

Under the best of circumstances there will be frequent trials of temper amongst brothers and sisters. Our varying dispositions, our self-will, our disappointments, tend to express themselves in differences and wrangling, and in warm and discourteous words. Temptations of this kind will occur where there is no selfishness in the general sense of that term, and no real jealousy. But if family life is to be sunny and sweet we must carefully guard ourselves here. Our duty is to try to understand each other's dispositions, to put the most generous interpretation on each other's words and actions, even when we dislike them. We must cultivate, in order to the perfection of brotherly love, the virtues of lowliness and meekness, to endure, not once or twice, but with "longsuffering," to soothe another's irritable temper, and to curb our own, resolutely, persistently. Carefully cultivate that love which, unless it "suffereth long," is not love at all, much less that love which should prevail in families.-W. Braden (Adapted).