1. Name any six important towns in Ireland, and describe, as accurately as you can, where they are situated.

2. Give names of twelve evergreen plants or trees.

3. Give names of twelve compound words, such as market-town, flower-pot.

ONE morning (raw it was and wet-
A foggy day in winter time)

A woman on the road I met,

Not old, though something past her prime : Majestic in her person, tall and straight;

And like a Roman matron's was her mien and gait.

2.

The ancient spirit is not dead;

Old times, thought I, are breathing there; Proud was I that my country bred

Such strength, a dignity so fair:

She begged an alms like one in poor estate;
I looked at her again, nor did my pride abate.

3.

When from these lofty thoughts I woke, "What is it," said I, "that you bear Beneath the covert of your cloak,

Protected from this cold, damp air?"

She answered, soon as she the question heard, "A simple burthen, sir, a little singing bird."

4.

And, thus continuing, she said,

"I had a son, who many a day Sailed on the seas, but he is dead;

In Denmark he was cast away :
And I have travelled weary miles to see

If aught that he had owned might still remain to me.

5.

The bird and cage they both were his :

'Twas my son's bird; and neat and trim He kept it: many voyages

The singing bird had gone with him ;

When last he sailed, he left the bird behind;

From bodings, as might be, that hung upon his mind. Wordsworth.

1. Name all the caged singing birds you can think of. Which do you like best, and why?

2. Write out what you know about Denmark.

3. Put down all words that occur to you which would rhyme with neat, sailed, hung.

Ab-ate', lessen.

Alms, offerings in charity.

Arms,as fire-arms, or limbs of the body.

Mean, low, shabby.

Mien, face, appearance.
Tra'-vel-led.

Voy'-a-ges.

THE WHITE LADY OF TRUDHOLME.

1. TRUDHOLME ABBEY is haunted by an ancient family ghost. A lady, dressed in white, presents herself by your bedside after midnight or in the grey of the morning and behaves in the alarming fashion, peculiar to her kind, rustling past you in a way that makes your blood to creep, or shrieking in an unearthly key, or gesticulating silently her mournful admonitions.

2. True, there are those who maintain that she is mice scampering along behind the wainscot and squealing as they pass, or the mad fantastic shadows cast by the moonlight playing upon the diamond window panes, but these would be creatures of a grovelling turn of mind, persons who insist upon getting at the bottom of things, and explaining matters which admit of no rational explanation.

3. Besides, there is the gruesome legend of the wicked Lady of Trudholme, who in an outburst of frenzy, either passionate or maniacal, cut off her own child's legs just above the knees—an effectual method of proceeding which must have made assurance doubly sure-and never since has she enjoyed a wink of sleep under her marble monument.

4. True again, that the master of the house believed he had discovered the origin of the story, when in tumbling over some old family pictures in a lumber room, he came upon one of the lady in question, with her little daughter by her side, a half-length portrait ending just above the knees, and as the mother lived

to a good old age, and was especially careful of her health, he argued that she would think twice before

she braved the chill of midnight in scanty white. mistaken.

draughty corridors after But he again might be

5. Certain it is, that a visitor to the Abbey, who was accommodated in the guest-chamber-or the ghost-chamber, as it was indifferently called-was awakened late one night by a female figure, all in white, standing by his side, and three times solemnly stroking the counterpane, then with an ominous shake. of the head vanishing silently as she came.

6. Appearing next morning at breakfast with a discomposed countenance, he was rallied on having had an interview with the ghost, and was constrained to confess that the accusation was well founded, to the no little consternation of the party assembled. The owner of the house alone was incredulous, and that night watched together with his guest to see if the visit should be repeated, when sure enough as the Abbey clock struck one in walked a female figure, habited as alleged, and solemnly stroking the bedclothes once, twice, thrice, she disappeared, but, not so quickly but that he had time to follow her to her room, and ascertain it was his housekeeper.

7. Next day the housekeeper made her appearance before the lady of the house, and related in a troubled voice how that twice in successive nights she had had a dreadful dream. She dreamt that the sheets of the bed in the visitor's room had not been aired, and that she herself in her dream had gone and found them

wringing wet. To be sure in the daytime they had seemed to her dry enough, but she was confident there must be somehow something wrong, for the visitor's face betrayed him; he was dejected and not himself, no doubt racked in every limb by dreadful rheumatism.

8. And then her mistress told her what had happened. Her horror and consternation it would not be easy to describe. To think that she, a matron on the sober side of sixty, should have been found gadding about the passages after midnight, playing at ghosts, and outraging the sanctity of a gentleman's sleeping apartment! It gave her a shock, which cured her in an instant of an inveterate habit of somnambulizing.

9. It is needless to add that the White Lady now no longer haunts the shades of Trudholme Abbey. At least, if she does, it is not the housekeeper.

U.

1. Mention names of any places you know ending in holm, shaw, ford, ton, ham, or ly, and explain what and where they are.

2. Describe, as well as you can, any dreadful dream you have ever had or heard of.

3. Parse: "Next day the housekeeper made her appearance."