selves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot from a huge copper tea-kettle, which would have made the pigmy macaronies of these degenerate days sweat merely to look at it. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum, until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend a large lump directly over the tea-table by a string from the ceiling, so that it could be swung from mouth to mouth an ingenious expedient, which is still kept up by some families in Albany, but which prevails, without exception, in Communipaw, Bergen, Flat-Bush, and all our uncontaminated Dutch villages. 6. At these primitive tea-parties the utmost propriety and dignity of deportment prevailed. No flirting nor coquetting, no gambling of old ladies, nor hoyden chattering and romping of young ones, no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen with their brains in their pockets; nor amusing conceits and monkey divertisements of smart young gentlemen with no brains at all. 7. The parties broke up without noise and without confusion. They were carried home by their own carriages that is to say, by the vehicles nature had provided them, excepting such of the wealthy as could afford to keep a wagon. The gentlemen gallantly attended their fair ones to their respective abodes, and took leave of them with a hearty smack at the door; which, as it was an established piece of etiquette, done in perfect simplicity and honesty of heart, occasioned no scandal at that time, nor should it at the present if our greatgrandfathers approved of the custom, it would argue a great want of reverence in their descendants to say a word against it. Washington Irving. 22 Go LESSON 96. IMMENSITY OF THE UNIVERSE. 10 with me to yonder "light-house of the skies.” Poised on its rocky base, behold that wondrous tube which lifts the broad pupil of its eye high up, as if gazing instinctively into the mighty deep of space. Look out upon the heavens, and gather into your eye its glittering constellations. Pause, and reflect that over the narrow zone of the retina of your eye a universe is pictured, painted by light in all its exquisite and beautiful proportions. 2. Look upon that luminous zone which girdles the sky,- observe its faint and cloudy light. How long, think you, has that light been streaming, day and night, with a swiftness which flashes it on its way twelve millions of miles in each and every minute? - how long has it fled and flashed through space to reach your eye and tell its wondrous tale? Not less than a century has rolled away since it left its home! 3. Hast thou taken it at the bound thereof? Is this the bound,— here the limit from beyond which light can never come? Look to yonder point in space, and declare that thou beholdest nothing, absolutely nothing; all is blank, and deep, and dark. You exclaim, Surely no ray illuminates that deep profound! Place your eye for one moment to the tube that now pierces that seeming domain of night, and, lo! ten thousand orbs, blazing with light unutterable, burst on the astonished sight. 4. Whence start these hidden suns? Whence comes this light from out deep darkness? Knowest thou, O man! the paths to the house thereof? Ten thousand years have rolled away since these wondrous beams set out on their mighty journey! Then you exclaim, We have found the boundary of light; surely none can lie beyond this stupendous limit: far in the deep beyond, darkness unfathomable reigns. 5. Look once more. of light now fills the field of the telescope. Whence comes the light of this mysterious object? Its home is in the mighty deep, as far beyond the limit you had vainly fixed,- ten thousand times as far,— as that limit is beyond the reach of human vision. The vision changes; a hazy cloud 6. And thus we mount, and rise, and soar, from height to height, upward, and ever upward still, till the mighty series ends, because vision fails, and sinks, and dies. 7. Hast thou then pierced the boundary of light? Hast thou penetrated the domain of darkness? Hast thou, weak mortal, soared to the fountain whence come. these wondrous streams, and taken the light at the hand thereof? Knowest thou the paths to the house thereof? 8. Hast thou stood at yonder infinite origin, and bid that flash depart and journey onward,- days, and months, and years, century on century, through countless ages,— millions of years, and never weary in its swift career? 9. Knowest thou when it started? Knowest thou it because thou wast then born, and because the number of thy days is great? Such, then, is the language addressed by Jehovah to weak, erring, mortal man. How has the light of science flooded with meaning this astonishing passage? Surely, surely we do not misread, the interpretation is just.-O. M. Mitchell. LESSON 97. THE GLOVE AND THE LIONS. KING FRANCIS was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport, And one day, as his lions fought, sat looking on the court; The nobles filled the benches, with the ladies in their pride, And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sighed; And truly 't was a gallant thing to see that crowning show, Valor and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below. 2. Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws; They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws; With wallowing might and stifled roar, they rolled on one another, Till all the pit, with sand and mane, was in a thunderous smother; The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air: Said Francis, then, “Faith, gentlemen, we're better here than there." 3. De Lorge's love o'erheard the king,—a beauteous, lively dame, With smiling lips, and sharp, bright eyes, which always seemed the same; She thought, "The Count, my lover, is brave as brave can be, He surely would do wondrous things to show his love of me; King, ladies, lovers, all look on; the occasion is divine; I'll drop my glove, to prove his love; great glory will be mine." 4. She dropped her glove, to prove his love; then looked at him, and smiled; He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild : The leap was quick, return was quick, he soon regained the place, Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady's face. "In faith,” cried Francis, "rightly done!" and he rose from where he sat; "No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task like that." Leigh Hunt. LESSON 98. SNOW-BOUND. HE moon above the eastern wood THE Shone at its full; the hill-range stood Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, 2. Shut in from all the world without, 3. The house-dog on his paws outspread |