The moral of the story forgotten.

The picture.

capered about the room a few minutes, rejoicing in my good fortune, and then went to bed." Here there was a little pause, and then Phonny asked if that was the end.

"Yes," said Wallace, "that is all."

"You said there was a moral to it,-what was it?" asked Mary Bell.

"A moral," said Wallace, pausing a moment to think. Yes, I recollect I had some moral. in mind when I began the story,—but I declare I have forgotten what it was."

Caroline and Mary Bell laughed. The rest of the party said it was no matter, for they did not think that the morals of stories were very interesting.

In respect to drawing lots for Mary Bell's picture, Wallace had a reason for wishing to postpone it, very different from any desire to secure an opportunity for finishing his story. He had a plan of going around to the children privately, and buying their chances. He went accordingly, after the story telling was ended, to one and another of the party, telling them that as they had only one chance to ten or twelve of gaining the picture, the probability in their favor was very small; and offered to give them vari

Wallace attempts to buy the chances.

Sarah draws it.

ous things, such as flowers, other pictures, apples, oranges, &c., for their lots. They would then have the things that he would give them at all events, and he would have the picture only in case they happened to draw it. Thus they would exchange an uncertainty for a certainty, which Wallace attempted to persuade them would be an excellent bargain.

He however met with very little success in these negotiations. Almost every one that he applied to wanted the picture very much herself, and was very sure that she should draw it. Wallace bought two chances however. He gave an orange for one, and an ornamented paper box which he had in his room for the other. These two lots, with his own, made three, but neither of them drew the prize. It fell to Sarah. Wallace knew that it would do no good to attempt to buy it from her at that time, she seemed so overjoyed at the acquisition of it. So he contented himself with lending her a book to carry it home in, in order that it might be carefully preserved, and with sending Phonny privately to her, to get her to promise that she would not give it away to any body for a week, without first letting him know. Then, near the close of the week, when Wallace

Wallace's plan for obtaining it at last.

supposed that Sarah's estimation of her prize would have been diminished by her having become familiar with the possession of it, he sent Phonny to offer her another picture in exchange for it. Sarah accepted the offer, and Phonny brought the drawing of the telegraph back to Wallace. The picture with which he bought it was a small but beautifully colored engraving of an English nobleman's estate, with a great profusion of shrubbery and flowers growing on the lawn.

Holydays.

Beechnut's plans.

The pond.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SHIP GIBRALTER.

AMONG the other ingenious plans which Beechnut adopted to amuse himself and the village boys on Saturday afternoons,-for Saturday afternoon was always holyday for him as well as for the other boys,-one was the fitting up and equipping of a large flat-bottomed boat, which he called his ship Gibraltar. In this boat he used to make excursions with the other boys upon the pond.

The pond was not very far from the village. It was a large and beautiful sheet of water, studded with wild-looking, woody islands. There were a great many bird's-nests on these islands, and the shores were bordered generally on all sides by a smooth beach, which contained, among the sands, a great variety of beautifully colored pebbles. The bottom of the pond was of hard sand, and as the water was very clear and not very deep, the boys could generally see the bottom, wherever they might be, by looking over the gunwale of the boat as they sailed

The pond lily cove.

Boats.

Raft.

along. There was one place where the water looked very deep, though it was not really so. The appearance was produced by the color of the soil which formed the bottom. This soil was very black and very fertile, and it was full of the roots of pond-lilies, which grew very luxuriantly in it. The place was in a cove which extended for a considerable distance into the land at one side of the pond. The surface of the water in this cove was covered with the green leaves of the lilies. The boys called these leaves lily-pads. They were of an oval form, and they floated on the surface of the water. The lilies were white, and were in size and form somewhat similar to a rose, only the petals, that is the flower leaves, were pointed, and were very regularly and symmetrically arranged, so that the lilies presented the appearance of so many white stars floating upon the water.

There were two or three small boats upon this pond. These the boys of the village were very fond of borrowing, in order that they might go out upon the pond to fish or to get pond-lilies in the cove. There was a raft too in the cove, made of old logs, fence posts, boards, and rails, and other such materials, the best which the boys had been able to get together in so remote