23.-SIX CHILDREN CAN NOT SUPPORT ONE

as-sent'ed, agreed.

main-tain', support.

FATHER.

re-marked', noticed.
ver'i-fied, proved true.

1. Too often is the common proverb verified, that a father can more easily maintain six children than six children one father. There is an example recorded of a father who gave up every thing to his children, -- his house, yard, fields, and goods, and expected that for that his children would support him.

2. After he had been some time with his son, the latter grew tired of him, and said to him, "Father, I have had a son born to me this night, and there where your arm-chair stands the cradle must come will you not please go to my brother who has a larger room?"

3. After he had been some time with the second son, he also grew tired of him, and said, "Father, you like a warm room, and that hurts my head. Won't you go to my brother the baker?" The father went, and, after he had been some time with the third son, he had also found him troublesome, and said to him, "Father, the people run in and out here all day as if it were a pigeonhouse, and you can not have your noon-day sleep: would you not be better off at my sister Kate's near the town-wall? "

4. The old man remarked how the wind blew, and said to himself, "Yes, I will do so; I will go and try it with my daughter. Women have softer hearts." But, after he had spent some time with his daughter,

she grew weary of him, and said she was always so fearful when her father went to church or anywhere else, and was obliged to descend the steep stairs; and at her sister Elizabeth's there were no stairs to descend, as she lived on the ground-floor.

5. For the sake of peace the old man assented, and went to his other daughter. But after some time she too was tired of him, and told him, by a third person, that her house near the water was too damp for a man who suffered with gout, and her sister, the sexton's wife, at St. John's, had a much dryer lodging.

6. The old man himself thought she was right, and went outside the gate to his youngest daughter, Helen. But, after he had been three days with her, her little son said to his grandfather, "Mother said yesterday to cousin Elizabeth that there was no better chamber for you than such a one as father digs." This speech broke the old man's heart, so that he sank back in his chair, and died. Then St. John took him home, and was much kinder to him than his six children; for he leaves him from that time to sleep undisturbed in his chamber.

24. - PAST AND PRESENT.

1. I REMEMBER, I remember,

The house where I was born;
The little window, where the sun
Came peeping in at morn:

He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day;
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

2. I remember, I remember,
The roses red and white,
The violets and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light;
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum, on his birthday:
The tree is living yet!

3. I remember, I remember,

Where I was used to swing,

And thought the air must rush as fresh

To swallows on the wing.
My spirit flew in feathers there,

That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool

The fever on my brow.

4. I remember, I remember,

The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky.

It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.

PART I.

be-tray', to tell, to disclose.
de-li'cious [de-lish'us], agreeable.
en-dure', to bear with patience.

hillock, a little hill.
tor-ment'ed, vexed.
ut'tered [ut'terd], spoken.

1. THERE was a woman who had three daughters. The eldest was called Little One Eye, because she had only one eye, and that was in the middle of her forehead; the second, Little Two Eyes, because she had two eyes like other people; and the youngest, Little Three Eyes,

because she had three eyes, one of them being also in the middle of the forehead. But, because Little Two Eyes looked no different from other people, her sisters and mother could not endure her. They said, "You with your two eyes are no better than anybody else; you do not belong to us." They knocked her about, and gave her shabby clothes, and food which was left over from their own meals; in short, they tormented her whenever they could.

2. It happened that Little Two Eyes had to go out into the fields to look after the goat; but she was quite hungry, because her sisters had given her so little to eat. She sat down on a hillock, and began to cry, and cried so much that two little streams ran down out of each eye. And as she looked up once in her sorrow, a woman stood near her, who asked, "Little Two Eyes, why do you cry?'

3. Little Two Eyes answered, "Have I not need to cry? Because I have two eyes, like other people, my sisters and my mother can not bear me. They push me out of one corner into the other, give me shabby clothes, and nothing to eat but what they leave. Today they have given me so little that I am still quite hungry.

4. The wise woman said, "Little Two Eyes, dry your tears, and I will tell you something which will keep you from ever again being hungry. Only say to your goat, Little goat, bleat; little table, rise,' and a neatlylaid table will stand before you with the most delicious food on it, so that you can eat as much as you like. And when you are satisfied, and do not want the table any more, only say, Little goat, bleat; little table,