Fly, Peter! The crowd has not gone deranged; it is only cheering. The pursuers are close upon you. Touch the white column. It beckons; it is reeling before you; it "Huzza! Huzza! Peter has won the silver skates !" "Peter van Holp!" shouted the crier. But who heard him? "Peter van Holp!" shouted a hundred voices; for he was the favorite boy of the place. "Huzza! Huzza!"

Now the music was resolved to be heard. It struck up a lively air, then a tremendous march. The spectators, thinking something new was about to happen, deigned to listen and to look.

The racers formed in single file. Peter, being tallest, stood first. Gretel, the smallest of all, took her place at the end. Hans, who had borrowed a strap from the cake boy, was near the head.

Three gayly twined arches were placed at intervals upon the river, facing the van Gleck pavilion.

Skating slowly and in perfect time to the music, the boys and girls moved forward, led on by Peter. It was beautiful to see the bright procession gliding along like a living creature. It curved and doubled and drew its graceful length in and out among the arches: whichever way Peter the head went, the body was sure to follow. Sometimes it steered direct for the center arch; then, as if seized with a new impulse, turned away, and curled itself about the first one; then unwound slowly, and bending low, with quick snakelike curvings, crossed the river, passing at length through the farthest arch.

When the music was slow, the procession seemed to crawl like a thing afraid; it grew livelier, and the creature darted forward with a spring, gliding rapidly among the arches, twisting, turning, never losing form, until, at the call of the bugle, it suddenly resolved itself into boys and girls standing in double semicircle before Madame van Gleck's pavilion.

Peter and Gretel stand in the center, in advance of the others. Madame van Gleck rises majestically. Gretel trembles, but feels that she must look at the beautiful lady. She cannot hear what is said. She is thinking that she ought to make a courtesy, when suddenly something so dazzling is placed in her hand that she gives a cry of joy.

Then she ventures to look about her. Peter, too, has something in his hands. "Oh, oh! how splendid!" she cries, and “Oh! how splendid!" is echoed as far as people

can see.

Meantime the silver skates flash in the sunshine, throwing dashes of light upon those two happy faces. Madame van Gend sends a little messenger with her bouquets one for Hilda, one for Carl and others for Peter and Gretel.

At the sight of the flowers, the Queen of the Skaters becomes uncontrollable. With a bright look of gratitude, she gathers skates and bouquets in her apron, hugs them to her bosom, and darts off to search for her father and mother in the scattering crowd.

From "Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates."

MARY MAPES DODGE

BETTER THAN GOLD

BETTER than grandeur, better than gold,

Than rank and titles a thousandfold,

Is a healthy body and a mind at ease,
And simple pleasures that always please.
However humble the home may be,

Or tried with sorrow by Heaven's decree,
The blessings that never were bought or sold
And center there are better than gold.

Better than gold is a thinking mind,
That in the realm of books can find
A treasure surpassing Australian ore,
Can live with the great and good of yore.
The sage's lore and the poet's lay,
The glories of empires passed away;
The world's great dream will thus unfold
And yield a pleasure better than gold.

Better than gold is a conscience clear,
Though toiling for bread in an humble sphere,
Doubly blessed with content and health,
Untried by the lusts and cares of wealth,
Lowly living and lofty thought
Adorn and ennoble a poor man's cot;
For mind and morals in nature's plan
Are the genuine tests of a gentleman.

Copyright by P. J. Kenedy and Sons.

REV. A. J. RYAN

A DOG OF FLANDERS

ELLO and Patrasche were friends in a

NELLO

friendship closer than brotherhood. They were of the same age by length of years, yet one was still young and the other was already old.

Their home was a rude little hut on the edge of a tiny village, a Flemish village a league from Antwerp, set amidst flat breadths of pasture and cornlands, with long lines of poplars and alders bending in the breeze, on the edge of the great canal. There were about a score of houses and homesteads with shutters of bright green or sky-blue, and roofs rose-red or black and white, and walls whitewashed until they shone in the sun like

snow.

In the center of the village stood a windmill placed on a little moss-grown slope; and opposite the windmill an old gray church with its conical steeple whose single bell rang morning, noon and night with that strange hollow sadness which every bell that hangs in the Low Countries seems to gain as a part of its melody.

Within sound of this little melancholy bell, almost from their birth upward they had dwelt together, Nello and Patrasche, in the little hut on the edge of the village, with the cathedral spire of Antwerp rising in the northeast beyond the great green plain of seeding grass and spreading corn that stretched away from them like a tideless, changeless sea.

It was indeed a very humble little hut, but clean and white as a seashell, standing in a small plot of garden ground that yielded beans and herbs and pumpkins. This was the home of Jehan Daas, a very old man. When he had reached his full eighty years, his daughter had died and left him her two-year-old son. Little Nello, which was but a pet name for Nicholas, throve with him, and the old man and the little child lived content in the tiny cottage together.

The old grandfather was very gentle and good to the boy, and the boy was a beautiful, truthful, tender-natured little creature; and though they were very poor, they were happy, and they asked nothing more except indeed that Patrasche should always be with them, since without Patrasche where would they have been? For Jehan Daas was old and a cripple and Nello was but a child; and Patrasche was their dog. He was body, brains, hands, head and feet to both of them.

A dog of Flanders- yellow of hide, large of head and limb, and with strong legs made stronger by hard work. Patrasche had been born of parents that had labored hard all their days over the sharp-set stones of the various cities and the long, shadowless, weary roads of Flanders.

He had been born to no other heritage than that of pain and toil. Before he was fully grown he had known the bitter gall of the cart and the collar. Before he had entered his thirteenth month he had become the property of a hardware dealer who was accustomed to wander over the land, north and south, from the blue sea to the green mountains.