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where they guard the gold and silver and precious stones hidden in the earth. The most malicious of the dwarfs, called trolls, live in the hills, and often come out to steal children, and even women. The nixies, who live in the water, try to induce men or children to go with them to their caves under the sea; and if they cannot do this, they are quite capable of carrying their victims off by force.

The Irish people have some very interesting fairy beliefs. Thus, they think that the banshees are little old women who conceal themselves in houses, and by their mournful wailing give notice of any death that is to occur. The pixies, another class of small beings in whom the Irish believe, are supposed to receive into themselves the souls of children who die before they have been baptized.

Though we know now that there are no such beings as fairies and gnomes, yet we can see about us every day things which are to the full as wonderful as any which the old-time peoples believed the fairies could accomplish. Centuries ago, when a story-writer wanted to have his hero go a very long distance in a very short time, he had to introduce a fairy; to-day he simply makes his hero take an express train. Then, a message could be transmitted through space instantly only by means of a fairy messenger; now the telegraph and the telephone do the work quite as quickly and as easily. You see, the old-time peoples saw the things that ought to be, but did not see how they could be; but we to-day do not need fairies to make the world. seem marvelous-the things that really exist about us are more wonderful than anything that a man's imagination could invent.

THE BROTHER AND SISTER

CERTAIN man had two children, a boy and

A girl. The lad was a handsome enough young

fellow, but the girl was very plain.

The latter, provoked beyond endurance by the way in which her brother looked in the glass and made remarks to her disadvantage, went to her father and complained of it.

The father drew his children to him very tenderly and said, "My dears, I wish you both to look in the glass every day. You, my son, that, seeing your face is handsome, you may take care not to spoil it by ill-temper and bad behavior, and you, my daughter, that you may be encouraged to make up for your want of beauty by the sweetness of your manners and the grace of your conversation."

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS

TH

By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

HERE is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,

And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he; "Have naught but the bearded grain?

Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to

me,

I will give them all back again."

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
He kissed their drooping leaves;

It was for the Lord of Paradise

He bound them in his sheaves.

"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay," The Reaper said, and smiled; "Dear tokens of the earth are they,

Where He was once a child.

"They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,

And saints, upon their garments white
These sacred blossoms wear.'

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;

She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,

The Reaper came that day;

"Twas an angel visited the green earth, And took the flowers away.

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THE SANDS OF DEE

By CHARLES KINGSLEY

MARY, go and call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

Across the sands of Dee!"

The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam,
And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,

And o'er and o'er the sand,

And round and round the sand,

As far as eye could see.

The rolling mist came down and hid the land—
And never home came she.

"Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair— A tress o' golden hair,

A drowned maiden's hair

Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair

Among the stakes on Dee."

They row'd her in across the rolling foam,

The cruel crawling foam,

The cruel hungry foam,

To her grave beside the sea;

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle

home

Across the sands of Dee!

I

MERCY TO ANIMALS

By WILLIAM COWPER

WOULD not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine

sense,

Yet wanting sensibility) the man

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarned,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,
And charged, perhaps, with venom, that intrudes,
A visitor unwelcome, into scenes

Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die:

A necessary act incurs no blame.

Not so when, held within their proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence, they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field;
There they are privileged; and he that hunts
Or harms them there, is guilty of a wrong,
Disturbs the economy of Nature's realm,
Who, when she formed, designed them an abode.
The sum is this: If man's convenience, health,
Or safety interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.

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