dread climbing down the tree, and there's not much left here. But we'll finish what we have begun," and, so saying, all crawled in again.

Old Hoe heard this also, but was too astonished to do anything but lean on his instrument and stare off into the garden. Perhaps he would have been more puzzled if he could have followed Rob with his apple. Rob ran into the house, and fetching a string from his pocket, he tied one end to the stem of the apple, and so hung it over the fire, twirling it round and round. The apple was a little dizzy at first, but in a moment was perfectly delighted at such a dance as he led; the pleasure he had felt when the wind blew him was nothing to this. Then the heat of the fire began to warm him and to creep deliciously through and through; why, the brightest sunshine had never so made him glow. The little apple laughed and shook with merriment; he could not keep in, and actually burst his sides out with joy, all the while humming a tune, being the first time he had ever sung in his life, and this was the song that Little Apple sung:

"All summer long

I sang no song

Upon the green-leaved tree:

But let the sun

Sing, one by one,

The summer songs to me.

"The songs I hid
My seeds amid,

Until they eager grew:
My lips, alas!

They could not pass,
To sing themselves anew.

"Then bright flames leapt

To where I kept

My pretty songs in age:

They burst the bars

With glad ha, ha's!

And mocked at my old age.

"Out flew the songs,

The summer songs; And now they sing to me The joys I knew

All summer through, Upon the apple-tree."

THREE WISE LITTLE BOYS.

CHRISTMAS always falls on the twenty-fifth of December, even if it is leap year, which joggles the almanac so, and sometimes the twenty-fifth is Sunday; and so it happened one year that in the little village of Blessington, Christmas and Sunday and the twenty-fifth of December all fell on the same day; and more than that, little Jacob Olds's birthday was on the same day; and when I tell you that little Jacob was exactly, to a day, one year younger than his brothers John and Peter Olds, you will see what a great occasion it was when the twenty-fifth of December, and Christmas, and Sunday, and little Jacob's birthday, and John's birthday, and Peter's birthday, all happened together and O, one thing more - Mr. and Mrs. Olds were married on Christmas eight years before, and this was leap year. I suppose it is not very often that such a Christmas happens.

:

The evening before this Christmas, John

and Peter and little Jacob were playing about their father and mother just before bed-time. The pretty room was nicely furnished, for there was Mr. Olds with his newspaper, pretending to read, and Mrs. Olds with her sewing, pretending to sew, and Peter and John and little Jacob playing about like three little kittens. Little Jacob finally climbed into his father's lap and pretended to read the newspaper too. There was a long column of print all about the financial difficulties of Austria, and Jaky read it aloud to his father somewhat thus, with his fat finger moving over the lines:

"On Christmas morning children have presents from their papas and mammas. Sometimes they are in stockings, but ours are on a big table. Some boys like books, but I like a sled. I think my papa will give me a sled," here he had nearly reached the bottom of the column, he read so fast, and so he ended up, -"and we wish you all a merry Christmas. Yours truly, Jacob Olds and Company.'

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دو

O, is that in the newspaper?" asked Peter, who had been listening. Why, that's my

father's name."

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"Pooh, you goose," said John, who was exactly of the same age, but always treated Peter as if he were years younger, "that's Jaky. He made it up."

"0," said Peter, who was not very quick, "I thought he was reading. Mamma, what is Christmas, any way?

It isn't Sunday, is

"It's the day when

presents are given. You have to say 'Merry Christmas' to everybody, and the one who gets up first and says it, is the best fellow."

"Then I'll get up first," said Peter. "You wake me, will you, mamma ? "

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Hoh," said John, "you're great. If mother wakes up first she'll say it."

"Any way," said Peter, "we're going to have a great dinner. I heard Becky say so, and she says folks always have a great dinner on Christmas."

"Becky knows ever so much," said little Jacob. She knows a lot she won't tell. She knows something about Christmas that's a secret, I guess. I said Christmas was my birthday

وو

"It's my birthday too," said Peter, who wanted to have everything that anybody else had.

"Any

"Well, it's mine, too," said John. body'd think you owned it. Does Christmas always come on Sunday, father? To-morrow's Sunday."