human eye could see him. Now this Elf was very spiteful, and considered he ought to be king; so he tried all he could to make the flowers rebel, and a great many tock his side. The crocuses, hyacinths, and all the tulip's relations-and she had a great many, all of different colours-followed him, besides most of the insects, who were the inhabitants of those painted kingdoms. But the Fairy had the violets, snowdrops, daisies, and most of the other flowers, besides the birds and butterflies. The Elf was smaller than the fairies, and could fly about in the daytime without any one seeing him. He used to visit the whole of his army, and arrange all his schemes by daylight; but the birds were the Fairy's friends, and used to perch on a tree near her, and sing to her, and tell her all her enemy's plots. One day a little bird came and sang to the Rosequeen, and told her the Elf was coming with all his people to see her the next night, so she must be on her guard in case of war. The Queen got all her army in order, and sat in state on her throne to receive the Elf. As soon as night fell, the fairies, peeping from between the leaves of the roses, saw a long cavalcade coming, with the Elf at their head. There came a whole army of elves out of all the tulips, crocuses, and hyacinths; then toads, frogs, and lizards from behind the large rockery in the shrubbery; after them came snails and slugs, and lots of other creeping things, and last of all a large tortoise. The Queen was quite ready, and sat on her throne, with the Queen of the bees by her side, and her whole court of fairies around her. The Elf advanced very slowly with his troop, and at last drew up in a long line before the rose-tree, and addressed the Queen as follows:: "Most gracious lady, and good and beautiful fairy. Ah!" said he to himself; I think that's a good beginning; she can't fail to be pleased with that." Then he began again: "Most gracious lady, and good and beautiful fairy, I have come to show you mercy, and I offer to share my kingdom with you, and I will graciously pardon all my rebellious subjects, if you will consent to my treaty; if not, I will But here he was cut short, for the fairies were so indignant at this insult to their queen that they fell on him, and beat him and his people so severely with their wands, that they retired in great confusion. But the Elf was not at all abashed at this defeat, for as soon as he had recovered himself, and got his army into working order again, he set to with more subtlety and skill to poison the minds of the fairies against their queen. There are discontented people in even the best and most admirably-governed kingdoms, and the Rose-queen's subjects were no exception to the rule, and, though she was a good sovereign, there were many fairies quite ready to take up arms against her, in any one's cause who seemed to offer them more advantages than they already possessed; but just at this period something happened that changed the whole course of their lives, and left them without a queen. She One day, as the Fairy was asleep in her bedchamber behind one of the rose-leaves, there came a young girl, who, after looking at all the roses, cut the middle one and fastened it in her hair. The Fairy slept so soundly in the rose that she had no idea where she was, and was very much astonished, on waking, to find herself in the lady's hair. peeped out from her rose-coloured bed-curtains, and saw a number of ladies and gentlemen playing a game in a very large garden. She looked about and saw the most lovely flowers, and thought this must be a beautiful country she had got into, much larger and finer than her own. While she was looking about her, the game that the mortals were playing stopped, and the young girl strolled round the garden, leaning on the arm of a gentleman, and entered what seemed to the Fairy a splendid palace, but what in reality was only a conservatory. There she saw most beautiful flowers, so gorgeous in colour-she had never seen anything half so brilliant before. Such grand and magnificent fairies lived in these palaces, they quite looked down upon her, poor little thing! and tossed up their heads, and turned up their noses, and said they were of foreign blood, and the Queen of the Roses was not fit to be their kitchen-maid. The poor little Fairy hung her head at these cruel words, and was glad when the lady and gentleman left the conservatory, and returned to the lawn to tea. The little Fairy looked from her rose-leaves, and thought that some of the ladies were very pretty, but much too big. They seemed very happy as they laughed and talked and drank their tea. She wondered if they lived in roses like herself, and if they did, how they got into them; whether they doubled themselves up, they were so big; and then they had no wings-that seemed to the Fairy very funny. While she was thinking of these things, all the people rose and walked away, the young lady among the rest. They went to the smooth lawn where they had before been playing, and began to dance. But they did not dance like the fairies, whirling round in a ring in the air, they turned round and round on the ground, and jogged up and down in such a manner that it made the poor little Queen feel sick. Then the music was so loud, it quite frightened her. At last she was so overcome with fatigue that she dropped asleep, and fell plump out of the lady's hair on the ground at her feet. The gentleman picked up the rose, and the Fairy heard him ask the lady if he might keep it. She said, yes, so he put the poor flower, which was drooping and half dead like the Fairy within it, into his waistcoat pocket. The poor little queen was half suffocated in that close, dark place, and she could hear something "THE QUIVER" BIBLE CLASS. going thump, bump, bump, thump. It made such a noise it quite alarmed her at first; she thought it must be some one knocking at a door over her head. She called out, "Come in," as loud as she could, but no one came. She called again, with the same result. After calling half-a-dozen times, it suddenly struck her that it must be that thing which she had heard human beings had in their bosoms, and that was-yes! it must be-a heart. It seemed so long to the Fairy in her little dark prison before she was let out; but in reality it was not many hours before the young man went home, and going to his desk, he took the rose out of his pocket, and touching a spring, a small drawer flew open, in which he gently laid the rose, and pushing the drawer to, he shut the desk and went to bed. A long, long time the Fairy stayed there-long after the rose was withered and dead. She often heard people come to the desk, but no one ever opened the drawer, and although she called loudly, nobody heard her, fairy voices not being able to pierce the dulness of human ears. At last she fell asleep, and slept a long while. She was suddenly roused by a loud click. It was the spring of the drawer. It flew open, and she was free! The first use she made of her liberty was to look to see who had set her free. She saw an old man standing before her. He had raised the rose in his hand, and seemed to be trying to remember how it came there. The Fairy, as she stood on the edge of the drawer watching him, saw his hand suddenly tremble; the rose fell, dropping to pieces in its fall, and the old man sank into a chair with his hands before his face, and murmured, "Twenty years ago! is it possible? | twenty years ago!" "Twenty years ago," thought the Fairy. "Have I been shut up twenty years? Well, how the time passes, to be sure! I wonder how my kingdom is getting on. But hush! I must find out this old man's story." "Twenty years ago!" murmured the old man again. "Is it so long since you and I parted, Alice?" and I might have been a happy man, with children round me, to cheer me in my old age, if I had only trusted you ;-if I had only trusted to your good and noble heart! And now!-and now you are dead! and I am old, miserable, and alone!" and the old man laid his head on his hands and wept, and the Fairy looking down on him, saw on the table at his side, a miniature of a very beautiful girl, and it was the face of the lady in whose hair she had lain. Then she read the story aright. This was the young man who had taken the rose, but through mistrust and jealousy had lost his happiness for life, and the young lady, sad at being mistaken, had pined away and died. The Fairy looked round the desolate room, and her 175 eyes filled with tears at so much misery and desolation. "Not even human beings," she thought, "the highest and mightiest work of creation, are perfectly happy. And have I been shut up twenty years to find out this, to witness so much unhappiness, and not be able to relieve it? I will go back to my kingdom and see how they are getting on. And yet! there is one way to make this miserable old man happy: shall I try it? Yes! I will." So she wafted a kiss to the lonely old man, that caused him to start up and shiver as he held out his arms with the cry, "I come, Alice-I come!" and the Fairy saw him fall back in his chair as though he were asleep. And she felt glad, for she knew he suffered no more pain, but was happy and at rest. (To be concluded in our next.) "THE QUIVER” BIBLE CLASS. 89. Where in the New Testament is the turning of water into blood mentioned ? 90. Show that fish was greatly used as food in Egypt. 91. The Lord sought to kill a man in an inn as he was on a journey with his wife and child. 92. A king who sent three sets of messengers to seize his enemy, but each set joined themselves to the party of that enemy. At last the king himself arrived, but the same irresistible desire seized him also. 93. A woman was won by the bravery of a warrior, and became his wife. After the husband fled from his country, she married another man; but when he became great, he sent to the king of the country he had left, and demanded his wife. The king took her from her husband, and sent her under a soldier escort; her husband followed weeping, until sent back by the captain. 94. "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him." Whose are these words? 95. What three things did the Lord cite as requisite for the bringing forth of good fruit? STRAY CHESTNUT-TREES grow to a great age and size; but that of Mount Etna, so famed by travellers as 160 feet in circumference, is now believed to have been composed of several trunks united together. The great chestnut-tree of Tortworth, in Gloucestershire, of which the remains still exist, bore the same name in the reign of King Stephen, and was a boundary tree in that of King John. The Spanish chestnuttrees in Betchworth Park, near Dorking, in Surrey, are thought to be coeval with the first Betchworth Castle, founded in 1377. A chestnut-tree near the village of Vernet is supposed to have been planted in the time of Calvin, at the dawn of the great religious struggle in Switzerland. | NOTES. A CURIOUS IMAGE!-Peter the Great being once at a town in Poland, heard much of a wonderful image of the Virgin Mary, which had been seen to shed tears during the celebration of mass, and he resolved to examine this extraordinary miracle. The image being highly elevated, he asked for a ladder, and having ascended it, discovered two little holes near the eyes. He put his hand to the head-dress, and lifted up with the hair a portion of the skull. The monks, who stood at the foot of the ladder, quietly regarded the Czar, for they did not imagine he could so soon discover the fraud; when he even put his fingers upon it, they shuddered to behold their miraculous Virgin thus dishonoured. The emperor discovered within the head a basin, whose bottom was IN the fourteenth century English poets were not even with the eyes. It contained a few small fish, so plentiful as they are in these versatile days. The the motions of which agitated the water, and caused pious and learned Dr. Rolle, who flourished in that it to issue slowly, and by small quantities, from the age, was no doubt more talked about than he would apertures. He descended the ladder without seeking now have been. But there was a certain quaint to undeceive the devotees, but addressing himself to power in his writing which I think might be relished the monks, said, coldly, "That is a very curious even in this later generation. Hear how he speaks-image indeed!" OFF THE BIYSSE THAT ES IN HEVENE. And alle joyes that beth spoken with one breth, And ther es ever day and never nyght, And ther es ever somer bryght for to se, PERSUASION BETTER THAN FORCE.-After the irritated bands of the aborigines of Tasmania had slain many of the colonists and cruelly slaughtered their shepherds and servants at the various outposts, and £27,000 had been in vain expended to subdue them by force, and all had failed to procure peace by means of what was called the Black War, it was restored by other means than by extirpation of the original inhabitants by war. He who was the means of doing this was an intelligent and active man named Robinson, a bricklayer by trade. He undertook the apparently impossible task of bringing in every aboriginal -man, woman, and child-to Hobart Town. This singular service he effected with great perseverance and skill. After they were brought in by his influence, they were shipped to Flinder's Island, where they were amply provided, at the expense of Government, with food, raiment, and habitation, and even medical attendance. The question naturally arises, How did he perform this great and honourable work? He went unarmed into the bush, accompanied by an aboriginal woman, his sole companion in the good work. He met the different tribes of the natives, and used such persuasive and effectual arguments, that all his diplomacy was crowned with success. He accomplished his object after a month's diligent labour. To estimate aright the value of his work, we must remember that he solely by his service, by the wisdom, prudence, and firmness which he displayed, accomplished that which Colonel Arthur, with the aid of the military and all the male population, with an expenditure of £27,000, failed to effect! "I CHAPTER XXXII.-THE LITTLE LEAK WHICH SINKS THE SHIP. MUST say I feel uneasy, Sidney; it was such a sudden illness, and to refuse to see either of us was a bad sign. Besides, she looked the picture of health yesterday.' VOL Y. "I cannot help it, mother. Women are full of caprices," said Sidney, moodily. "You are going to the Hall now, at all events ?" said Lady Peters, anxiously. 223 "Yes, she may be better this morning." He did not look quite himself. His face had a careworn expression, different to its usual jaunty air. He had a letter from Amy in his pocket; not that he had opened it. He knew well enough where the letter came from; and he was affected for the moment by the deep black edge of the envelope, which told him that Amy was an orphan. retirement whither his seductive voice could not She thought it She explained the matter to him. was but fair and just. She repeated the words which had made shipwreck of her happiness. The sentences were brief and soon said. But it is the little leak Should he throw it into the fire? What was the which sinks the ship! use of harbouring such a reminder? "Sidney," said the few blotted lines inside the letter-" Sidney, how was it that you never came? I am ill; you would hardly know me to be the same Amy, and I have no home but with Reuben. Ho told me you were coming. He chides me, Sidney, because I don't get well, and because I cannot turn my thoughts to other subjects. And my heart leaped with such joy at the hope of seeing you once more-my love! my love! "I sat watching all the day. At first, I felt so bright and happy. But I grew weary and heartsick when night came and you had not been. And the next day I watched. Sidney, I keep watching every day; and my life is wearing out, and my heart is breaking. Come, Sidney, come !—my love! my love!" He laughed-not the mocking laugh which still rang in her ears. No; a clear, joyous, musical laugh—his own laugh. | She was indignant at his levity; it nerved her to greater firmness. What before had been a faint glimmer, was now clear as daylight. He was alarmed at her looks. He thought he had gone too far. "Adela, my love, my dearest, my wife that will be!" And with all the old blandishments, he sought to take her to his heart, and make his peace. His syren voice, his honeyed smile, the fascination of his eye, told upon her. Her heart thrilled as only he could make it. Every impulse was drawn as by This was the letter, which Sidney had not even magic power to him-him only! opened. He rode over to Bramley Hall betimes. There was a misgiving in his mind which he tried to put down. What was there to be afraid of ?- —a slight illness, that was all. It would soon pass by, and he cantered merrily onward. Perhaps she would meet him at the gate, or in the walk, or at the summer-house. What a glorious morning! She would be sure to come. He left his horse with a groom, and went to look for her in the usual haunts. She was not in any of them. The summer-house was empty and deserted. He was afraid she was really ill, and that the matter was serious. He hurried to the house to inquire. Yes, she had been ill, but she was better. She was in the breakfast-room as usual. He Oh! it was all right, and he stepped briskly forward. Things would go on just the same. should have the same pleasant morning, the music, the reading, the lovers' talk. He could do the latter to perfection. What was the matter? Why was she sitting listless and unoccupied, her hands folded, her face rigid? Where was the smile, the glad look, the ardent welcome he had never missed before? Could this pale-stricken woman be the brilliant Adela of yesterday? He seemed to have met with a blank ! She had debated with herself, all through the weary night, whether she should see him again; whether she should not flee away into some deep He saw his advantage, and he added, eagerly, "Give up the child, Adela, and come to me. What is its puny love to mine-ine, that will cherish and abide by you while life lasts ? Think of my love, dearest!" and again he sought to approach her. But she would not. The ordeal was beyond her strength. She had never loved him more vehemently than now. Her soul went forth to him as to its rest-its home. But she knew the rest would be deceptive. It had no element of security about it. Pleasure, with white hand, beckoned; Duty sternly forbade. Was she not in duty bound? She was not the woman to make a scene. There was little romance or sensationalism in Adela's nature. She was simple-minded, prompt, and firm. And she meant to abide by her sister's child. She told him so. She had made a mistake, she said, and there was a stifled sigh, and a yearning wistful look in her eyes. But it was not too late. Sorrow had better come now than later. The calm conviction of her mind was that the marriage must be set aside. Her manner was so decided, that for the moment he could not answer her. He was conscience-stricken, and his usual fluency seemed to have forsaken him; not that he gave her up. Oh, no! There were many arts yet to be practised. He was a man of resource, and it was not likely he should be baffled after all. |