products, helping to square accounts with the blacksmith, the wheelwright, the minister, and the lawyer, if the farmer was so unfortunate as to have any dealings with the latter personage. His life during peace may well seem to us tame and limited; but the sun which warmed him was identical with ours; the breezes which refreshed him were like those we gladly welcome; and while his roads to mill and to meeting were longer and rougher than ours, he doubtless was as contented as we, and with small suspicion of his ill fortune in having been born. in the eighteenth instead of the nineteenth century.-Horace Greeley.

"THE DRESSY TONE"

After an afternoon away from home a young mother found her little daughter somewhat excited and eager to talk. "What has happened since mamma went?" asked the mother.

66

'Nothing happened," said the child, "but Mrs.

a visit and she waited a little while."

came to pay you

"I am sorry that I was absent, but I hope my little daughter tried to make it pleasant for her."

"Oh yes I did, mamma. I talked to her in just the same dressy tone that you do when you have company."

The mother laughed, but she took the lesson to heart as a good many of us might do with profit to our manners. I do not mean our company manners. Those are apt to be dressy enough. I do not say they are too dressy, for true politeness and true hospitality will make it natural for the face to wear a smile and the voice a cordial tone. There is no hypocrisy in this if there is in the heart a real welcome for the guest and a genuine desire that the visit shall be a pleasant one to her. But the dressy tone meant to the child something sweeter and more courteous than she heard in the ordinary home conversation. The lesson we need to learn is not to withdraw the courteous tone from our company, but to put it into the every-day home life.

At the heart of good manners lies good feeling, and the lack of good manners in our homes is not altogether due to lack of kindliness and love. It is one of the evils that is wrought by want of thought rather than by want of heart. We answer our own gruffly when the utmost courtesy would mark our answer to a stranger. There are families not a few that claim to love their homes, but the freedom of the home means to them the freedom to be indifferent, rude or ungracious, according to the changing mood.

This happens to be one of the things which is largely in the hands of the young women of a household. The boys in a family are more apt to be influenced by the manners of the girls than are the girls by the example of the boys. Girls who are thinking about the ways in which home may be made happier will find this one of the points demanding and deserving our serious

attention.

MY NEIGHBOR

Our domiciles stand side by side
With but a step between,

My trees their cooling shadows throw
Across her plat of green;

And often, when she saunters forth
To view her snug domain,

I watch to catch her eye, but all
My scheming is in vain.

She will not look at me; perhaps

She thinks it is a sin

That I should stand beneath my tree

And drink earth's beauties in;

Or, if she turns my way at all,

'Tis with a glassy stare

That makes me wonder at my cheek,

For being anywhere.

She moves majestically along-
That is, as best she may;

For she is neither tall nor fair
And just a trifle gray;

I fancy she was pretty in

The dim, dim long ago,

But now-ah, well, what matters it;
She holds me as her foe.

Sometimes I think how nice 'twould be
To dwell in concord sweet,

To nod and smile, as neighbors do

Whene'er we chance to meet;

But, ah! alas, I know 'tis vain,

We never can be friends

She cultivates a garden, and

I keep a flock of hens.

A little boy who was accustomed to say grace in the absence of his father, had a younger brother who found it hard to wait until grace was over without helping himself to some of the good things near. On one occasion, when com

pany was present, the young master of ceremonies observed the small boy helping himself liberally to cake before the blessing was asked, so he deliberately said: "For what we are about to receive, and for what Charlie has already helped himself to, the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen."

"When I was a child," said a dear old English lady, whose hair is white with the snow of nearly eighty winters, "it was thought necessary in my mother's family to give each child at regular intervals a little dose of senna. I was a tiny rebel when my turn for the bitter dose came around. I tried hiding behind the bed. I rolled myself under the sofa. I said I was ill, refused to be dressed, insisted that I did not want any breakfast. Yet the maternal authority was strong enough to disregard all my little subterfuges, and to bring me face to face with that dreaded tablespoon. In private, mother chided me, and sometimes at family prayers my father asked that a very wilful little girl might be made obedient and good. Yet neither prayers nor punishments availed. Now and then my kicks and struggles ended in the nurse holding my nose and pour

ing the medicine anywhere but down my unhappy little throat. A most unpleasant and disagreeable state of affairs!

"Upon this unhappy state of things broke one fair June morning the knowledge that my heavenly Father, to whom I had been praying for a little sister, had sent one to be mother's darling and my own delight. Never can I forget the feeling with which, standing on tip-toe by the bed, I reached my hand up to touch the red and wrinkled cheek of this dear little morsel of humanity, sent, as I thought, straight from God to make me a happy child.

"As my father, who after watching my awe-struck face, led me on tip-toe from the room, he took me on his knee and said, ' God has sent you this darling little sister to help you to be happy. She will grow to be a beautiful little girl, and by and by she will talk and walk and play with you, and I want you to remember that just such a child as you are she will be. If you are kind and sweet, the little sister will be so, too. If you are cross and naughty and spiteful to nurse when she wishes to give you your medicine, then we shall have two naughty little children in the house. Would you like to see her behaving as you do over the unpleasant medicine that mamma believes will do you good?'

"The little lesson sank deep. Before my father died, he told me that from that talk he dated the change from the little rebel to the obedient and gentle daughter. It was pathetic, he said, when my little face puckered up with disgust at the sight of the dreadful dose, to see the change when he said, 'now take it, dear, as you would want little sister to take it.' And I remember myself how, even far into my girlhood, I watched my words and ways, striving to be what I would have the little sister be."

This was an old-fashioned family, and an old-fashioned and very foolish way of keeping the children well; but there is a lesson here for the elder children of a household, especially for elder girls. It is true that not even the mother's influence is greater than that of the big sister. There is here a question affecting the future lives of those dear to us and the happiness of our home. Speaking of pleasing ways of giving medicine, calls to mind the case of a good grandmother who had a clever way of administering the baby's powders in spoons of porridge. "Was that bad, dear?" she would ask, when the little lass made a wry face. "Here's another to take the taste out." So, when reproofs had to be administered, she would always add something pleasant in the same way.

HOW LITTLE CHILDREN LOVE Our little friends try to show how much they love us. his hands high, and says, "I love you all that!" human love; there is limit-an all that."

A child holds up Well, there is a measure of

A little boy once called out to his father, who had mounted his horse for a journey, "Good-bye, papa, I love you thirty miles long!" A little sister quickly added, "Good-bye, dear papa, you will never ride to the end of my love!"

HOME-LIFE OF THE CZAR

The home life of the Russian ruler is said to be one of simplicity, domestic peace and happiness. From their bridal day, Nicholas has deferred much to the judgment and wishes of the gentle and good Czarina. It has been her habit to sit near

him when he is engaged in looking over the many papers submitted to him, or in similar duties of state. There is no more arduous worker in the world than the Czar of all the Russias; and if it were not for this custom of the Czarina's, Nicholas would have seen comparatively little of his wife.

When officials would come in to see him, the Czarina, taking up her work-basket, would start to go out, but her husband would say: "Stay, Sasha,"

because the baby was not a boy, but the Czar has tenderly welcomed his little daughters, and is very proud of them. It is sad to think of the shadow of uneasiness that anarchism has cast over this royal home, and in some measure over their sovereigns' relations with their people. The Czar and Czarina used to go, unattended, into any little church they came across, and kneel down at communion side by side with their peasant subjects.

The strength of a nation is in proportion to the number of its virtues, that is, of its natural homes, founded upon supreme affections.-Joseph Cook.