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"It went, but it didn't come," I replied, with my eyes still fixed on Henry.

"Oh! oh! oh!" resumed the chorus. "It went, but it didn't come !"

"Please stand still, Henry! Don't stir!" I said. “I want to go nearer to it. She wouldn't let me."

He

I crept slowly towards him, my arms still folded. grew pale, and all the room became silent. The presiding officer and the members of The High Society of Inquiry were getting scared. "It went, but it didn't 10 come," "I said. "This one comes, but it doesn't go. I should like to kiss it."

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I put out my hands towards Henry, and he sank down behind the table as if a ghost were about to touch him. The illusion was broken, and I started as if awakened 15 suddenly from a dream. Looking around upon the boys, and realizing what had been done and what was in progress, I went into a fit of hearty crying, that distressed them quite as much as my previous mood had done. Nods and winks passed from one to another, and 20 Hulm was told that no further testimony was needed. They were evidently in a hurry to conclude the case, and felt themselves cut short in their forms of proceeding. At this moment a strange silence seized the assembly. All eyes were directed towards the door, upon 25 which my back was turned. I wheeled around to find the cause of the interruption. There, in the doorway, towering above us all, and looking questioningly down upon the little assembly, stood Mr. Bird.

"What does this mean?" inquired the master.

I flew to his side and took his hand.

The officer who had presided being the largest boy, explained that they had been trying to break Arthur Bonnicastle of lying, and that they were about to order

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him to report to the master for confession and correction.

Then Mr. Bird took a chair, and patiently heard the whole story.

Without a reproach further than saying that he thought me much too young for experiments of the kind they had instituted in the case, he explained to them and to me the nature of my misdemeanors.

"The boy has a great deal of imagination," he said, "and a strong love of approbation. Somebody has flat-10 tered his power of invention, probably, and to secure admiration he has exercised it until he has acquired the habit of exaggeration. I doubt whether the lad has done much that was consciously wrong. It is more a fault of constitution and character than a sin of the 15 will; and now that he sees that he does not win admiration by telling that which is not true, he will become truthful. I am glad if he has learned, even by the severe means which have been used, that if he wishes to be loved and admired he must always tell the exact 20 truth, neither more nor less. If you had come to me, I could have told you all about the lad, and instituted a better mode of dealing with him. But I venture to say that he is cured. Aren't you, Arthur?" And he stooped and lifted me to his face and looked into my 25 eyes.

"I don't think I shall do it any more," I said.

Bidding the boys disperse, he carried me down stairs into his own room, and charged me with kindly counsel. I went out from the interview humbled and without a 30 revengeful thought in my heart towards the boys who had brought me to my trial. I saw that they were my friends, and I was determined to prove myself worthy of their friendship.

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III.

THE COUNTRY LIFE.

BY R. H. STODDARD.'

NOT what we would, but what we must,'
Makes up the sum of living;

Heaven is both more and less than just

In taking and in giving.

Swords cleave to hands that sought the plow,

And laurels' miss the soldier's brow.

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Me, whom the city holds, whose feet
Have worn its stony highways,

Familiar with its loneliest street-
Its ways were never my ways.

My cradle was beside the sea,

And there I hope my grave will be.

Old homestead!' In that old gray town,
Thy vane is seaward blowing,
Thy slip of garden stretches down

To where the tide is flowing;
Below they lie, their sails all furled,
The ships that go about the world.

Dearer that little country house,
Inland, with pines beside it;

Some peach trees, with unfruitful boughs,
A well, with weeds to hide it:

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No flowers, or only such as rise
Self-sown, poor things, which all despise.

Dear country home! Can I forget
The least of thy sweet trifles?
The window vines that clamber yet,
Whose blooms the bee still rifles?"
The roadside blackberries growing ripe,
And in the woods the Indian pipe.

Happy the man who tills his field,
Content with rustic labor;

Earth does to him her fulness yield,
Hap' what may to his neighbor.
Well days, sound nights-oh, can there be
A life more rational and free?

Dear country life of child and man!

For both the best, the strongest, That with the earliest race began,

And hath outlived the longest.

Their cities perished long ago;

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Who the first farmers were we know.

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Perhaps our Babels" too will fall.
If so, no lamentations,

For Mother Earth will shelter all,"

And feed the unborn nations;

Yes, and the swords that menace now
Will then be beaten to the plow.

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IV.

AN OCTOBER EVENING'S RAMBLE.

BY CHARLES C. ABBOTT.'

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THE last rays of the sun to-day-—a handful of golden arrows' were shot through the beeches at 5 P.M., and the last of the roostward-flying crows passed over ten minutes later. An hour afterwards the night had set in, breezy, cold, clear, and moonlit. Does an October night need anything else? I walked up through the cornfield to the lone oak in the upland clover, and after standing a while I was fortunate enough to see an old grizzly opossum start on his nocturnal rounds. The exit of an opossum from his home-tree is an artistic proceeding. 10 With only his head projecting beyond the opening, he took a long observation. Just of what is not easy even to guess, but very possibly only of the weather. Then placing his fore-feet on the rim of the hole, which was ten feet from the ground, the animal looked downward 15 and sidewise for fully ten minutes. Wrapped in gray, and hidden in tall weeds, I do not think he saw me. Then slipping his fore-feet down the trunk of the tree, the opossum held on by his hind-feet and tail, and in this upside down position again scanned the neighborhood closely, or listened for suspicious sounds, or both. This was but for a few moments, and then the downward climb commenced. Once at the foot of the tree the opossum broke into a jog trot, and was directly out of sight and hearing.

We are all familiar with the fact that rattlesnakes,

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