"No, dear, certainly not.

No doubt the girls will have their

cousins there part of the time; it was very kind of Mrs. Desmond to invite one of you."

"Very kind," repeated Aline; "but, oh, dear, why haven't we money to go away like other people?"

"Hush, my child; remember our many mercies.

Although your father has lost a great deal of money lately, he still has his business. Then we are all fairly strong, with the exception of Beth."

"What are you saying about me, mother dear ?" asked a sweet-faced, delicate-looking girl, as she entered the room just at that moment.

"It is such a lovely day," she continued; "the sun is shining so brightly, and there is no wind, only a gentle, little breeze. Do go out and have a walk, mother; you have been in the house all the week. Daisy and I can take care of Bertie and Baby, if Aline is busy. Aline, have you your history lesson to learn ?"

There was no reply. All unnoticed Aline had slipped quietly away, and neither Mrs. Beaumont nor Beth saw her again until tea time.

Seated alone in the room she shared with Beth, the child thought about the letter received that day and the invitation it contained.

"Beth has never been to Silverlea," a little voice seemed to whisper to her, "and she does not know Kate and Florence Desmond. She is very shy about visiting strangers, and she would never be willing to accept an invitation intended for you. If she went, she might be homesick."

"Homesick!" Aline repeated the word to herself. Then sho smiled as she thought of the kind, loving aunt who was so much like her own dear mother, and the two merry, good-natured girls. who would vie with each other in sharing all their pleasures with gentle little Beth. It was not likely that Beth would have chance of feeling homesick.

a

"Why, the garden at Silverlea, the garden alone would make Beth happy," said Aline; "then there is the lake, the boating, the driving, and the riding (Kate and Florence are sure to have their ponies there)."

"Still, you want to go," whispered the little voice," and the invitation was for you, and—”

"Yes, it was for me, and I should have been delighted to go, only Beth needs to go far more than I do. Oh! why don't I feel ever so pleased to give up? Why does it seem difficult?"

She knelt down by her own little bed as she asked herself the question, and when she rose from her knees and went away down stairs, a few minutes later, the victory was won.

"Beth shall go," she repeated to herself, and when her mother

returned an hour later from the walk Beth had prevailed upon her to take, she told her of her decision.

"Mother, dear," she whispered, fearful of being overheard, "please write to Aunt Jessie tonight and tell her how delicate Beth has seemed lately and how much she needs a change, and ask her to ask Mrs. Desmond kindly to send an invitation for her instead of for me. Only be sure you make her quite understan that Beth must never know that I was invited first. This must be a little secret between you and me. You know what I mean,

don't you?"

"Yes, dear," replied Mrs. Beaumont, as she kissed the child's flushed face, "I quite understand, and I cannot tell you how pleased, how thankful I am to find you so ready, so willing to give up your own pleasure for Beth's sake."

"But I wasn't willing at first," interrupted Aline; "and only think, mother, just before you told me about the invitation, I had been thinking how I should like to do some great, grand work; and then when I had the chance of doing something for our own dear Beth, why, I felt I'd rather not do it until-until I prayed and asked God to take away the horrid, selfish feeling. He did take it away, really and truly. I am now more pleased to think about Beth going to Silverlea than I was when I hoped to go there myself. It's all settled now."

Yes, it was all settled. Three days later an invitation came for Beth, and a week later she went to Silverlea. She wrote home twice each week, and as Aline read the letters, giving full descriptions of all the plasures she was enjoying, she felt glad that she had put her own wishes on one side. And when her Aunt Jessie wrote saying that the change of air was doing Beth a wonderful amount of good, and that she was daily growing stronger, she felt, as she told her mother, "happier than she had ever done in all her life."

"I don't believe," she said, "that Grace Darling or Joan of Arc ever felt any happier."-Selected.

Memory Gem.

"Yield not to temptation,

For vielding is sin;

Each victory will aid you

Some other to win."

LESSON X.

REVERENCE FOR HOUSES OF WORSHIP.

Teacher's Reading.

Life of Christ.-Farrar.

Picture, "Christ Driving out the Money Changers."

John 2: 13-25.

CLEANSING THE TEMPLE.

Jesus goes to Jerusalem--the feast-the Temple-the money-changers, oxen, sheep, etc.-the command of Jesus-how it was obeyed-Our houses of worship-how they should be respected. Why?

A RED MAN'S REVERENCE FOR THE LORD'S HOUSE.

School had closed for the day, and a heavy, wet snow was fall

ing. As the larger boys rushed out, they began catching up handfuls of the wet snow, squeezing it into balls and throwing them at each other. They were laughing so merrily and having such fun that seven-year-old Georgie Morse wanted to join them. picked up some snow and made a ball, as the other boys were doing. Then he looked about to see whom he should throw it at.

He

"Hit me, little boy; me no hurt you," said some one so close to Georgie that it made him jump; and looking around, he saw standing but a step or two from him a great, tall Indian "brave," with a large, heavy, red blanket over him. His face was painted red, with yellow stripes on it. He smiled at Georgie, and stepping back a short distance said good-naturedly, "Hit Powderwitch, little boy, Powder-witch no hurt you!"

George felt so encouraged by the friendly way in which the red man introduced himself, that he drew up his little form, raised his arm and threw the snow-ball with all his force at the painted face. He struck it, too, which made the Indian wince and rub his cheek with his hand, and then shout with laughter, as he gathered up a handful of snow and scattered it over Georgie's cap This Georgie thought was just fine sport; for it seemed the red man didn't know anything about playing snow-ball, and so he could easily hold his own with him, and more, too.

The Indian took care of his face after that first throw of Georgie's, covering it with his blanket when the little boy would raise his arm to throw. And that pleased Georgie and made him laugh as much as it would have done to hit the red man's face.

Powder-witch still played very cautiously, that he might not hurt or even frighten his little play-fellow; and the two were having as jolly a time as any on the ground, when something very sad happened.

Great, clumsy Zim Starker came lumbering that way, with a very hard snow-ball, which he had been squeezing a long time; and instead of throwing it at some one his own size or age, as if to try to be smart by spoiling the sport between Powder-witch and his new friend, Zim struck an awful blow with the hard ball right on the side of poor little Georgie's head.

With a cry of pain, Georgie went tumbling head over heals into a pile of frozen snow and gravel, upon which his face was badly cut and bruised. He did not see what happened next, as he was picked up and carried home by some of his neighbor boys.

But the other boys heard a short, sharp war-whoop given, as Powder-witch first bounded into the air, and then commenced pelting Zim vigorously, not only with snow but with stones from the gravel pile.

Zim made no effort whatever to defend himself, but, running to the door of the school-house, either fell or was knocked down on the step by a stone or hard snow-ball from the Indian's strong swift hands.

If Georgie had seen Powder-witch then, he would no longer have thought the red man didn't know how to play; and, whatever his first feelings might have been toward Zim, when that great, big fellow had struck and hurt him so, he would have pitied him, and would have cried for Powder-witch to stop, had he seen how mercilessly the Indian pelted the boy.

The stones and snow-balls, piling up on Zim and on the step, bounced against the school-house door, and finally shook it open Then the stones and snow went rolling and whizzing into the house.

Nannie Myers, a young woman who had stayed in the schoolroom to study for a while, now came to the door.

None of the boys had dared to interfere with the angry red man, or to try to assist Zim; or perhaps they felt as if Zim deserved a good thrashing and was getting it.

But when Nannie came to the door and saw what was going on, she shook her head at Powder-witch, and raised her hand for him to stop.

"Um pike!

Um pike, squaw;" Powder-witch called to Nannie, in answer to her movement in Zim's behalf, meaning "You go! You go, woman!"

Instead of retreating into the house, however, Nannie stepped bravely out, clambering over the boy and the snow and stones on the door step. An Indian always admires a brave and daring action, and despises cowardice; and Powder-witch let his hand drop instead of throwing again as Nannie stepped out.

She approached the Indian, and laid her hand on his arm.
"See what you have done to the school-house!" she said,

pointing to the stones and snow that littered the floor and doorway, as Zim slowly got up and sneaked off.

"Ka wyno wickyup! Ka wyno boys!" said the brave, savagely, by which he meant, "The house is not good! The boys are

not good!"

Nannie could talk with the Indians some, and she answered Powder-witch very gravely:

"Wickyup shonta wyno! Great Spirit's wickyup! Bishop, Bishop's wyno white men kim ick wickyup, tegwin Great Spirit!" As she spoke of the Great Spirit," Nannie raised her eyes toward heaven, and Powder-witch understood her. She had told him that the house was very good; that it was the Lord's house, and that the Bishop and his good men came to it to talk with the Lord.

Powder-witch had thought of it only as a school-house for such boys as Zim; but when Nannie had impressed him with the thought that it was also used for a house of worship-as in earlier times it often happened that the same building had to answer for both meeing and school-house, the Indian's manner changed at

once.

Dropping his blanket on to his shoulders, thus reverentially uncovering his head, he stepped humbly forward, and with his moccasined feet cleared off every stone and all the snow he had thrown upon the doorstep and floor, leaving them cleaner than they were before he came there.

It is good to be able to tell that the next morning before school time, although quite stiff and lame, Zim Starker hobbled over to the home of Georgie Morse, anxious to know if the little boy was much hurt; and it was a great relief to Zim to find that Georgie was nearly all right, and not seriously injured.

Zim's apology for his thoughtlessness in hitting Georgie as he did was gladly accepted, and he was freely forgiven.

Nannie Myers told the school teacher of the great reverence shown by the red man for the house of the Lord. The story was repeated to the whole school, and it helped the boys and the girls as well to remember to show proper respect to the house themselves.-L. Lula Greene Richards.