It was midnight when they reached the foot of their mountain, on the ridges of which beacon fires had been lighted. They had only begun to ascend, when they heard voices crying:

"Is it you, my children?"

They answered immediately, and the negroes also cried out, "Yes, yes, here we are."

A moment after they saw their mothers coming toward them with lighted torches in their hands.

"You poor children!" cried Madame de la Tour, "where have you been? what anxiety you have caused us!"

"We have been," said Virginia, " to the Black River, where we went to ask pardon for a poor runaway slave, to whom I gave our breakfast this morning, because she seemed dying of hunger; and these runaway negroes have brought us home."

Madame de la Tour embraced her daughter, but was unable to speak; and Virginia, who felt her face wet with her mother's tears, exclaimed, "Now I am repaid for all the hardships I have suffered."

Margaret, beside herself with joy, clasped Paul in her arms, exclaiming, "And you, too, my dear child, you have done a good action."

When they reached the cottages with their children, they gave all the negroes a substantial meal, after which

the latter returned to the woods praying Heaven to shower down every blessing on those good white people.

BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE.

Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, a celebrated French writer, was born at Havre, January 19, 1737. He was by profession an engineer, but when about thirty-five he resolved to devote himself to literary work. He published a number of books which were favorably received, and in 1788 gave to the world "Paul and Virginia," and it is on this charming story that his fame is principally built. The author died in 1814.

maze:

quenched put an end to. - filaments: fibers; threadlike parts. steel and flint: used in old times for creating fire by striking the two together. daunted: frightened. exhausted : worn out. confusion; network of paths. -frantic: distracted; crazy. - lairs: beds of wild beasts. - scent: smell. -league: a distance of about three statute miles.-litter: stretcher.-ridges: upper parts of a range of mountains. -beacon: signal fire. -anxiety: restlessness.

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hart's-tongue: a fern native to Florida.

Irish Scribes and Books.

In old times all books were handwritten, printing being a late invention. There were persons called scribes, many of whom made writing the chief business of their lives. From constant practice they became very expert; and the penmanship of many of them was extremely beautiful and highly orna

mented, much more so than any writing executed by the very best penman of the present day.

In Ireland most of these scribes were monks, inmates of monasteries; but many were laymen. These good and industrious men wrote into their books all the learning of every kind that they could collect; so that although the work of writing was slow, the number of books rapidly increased; and very large libraries grew up, especially in the monasteries. The leaves of these books were not paper like those of our books, but parchment or vellum, which was generally made from sheepskin, but often from the skins of other animals.

If an old book began to be worn, ragged, or dim with age, so as to be hard to make out and read, some scribe was sure to copy it, so as to have a new book, easy to read and well bound. Most of the books written out in this manner related to Ireland; and the language of these was almost always Irish. For in those times the Irish language was spoken by all the people of Ireland.

A favorite occupation was copying portions of the Holy Scriptures, generally in the Latin language; and in this good work some monks spent nearly all their time, in order to multiply copies of the sacred books. Some of the greatest saints of the ancient Irish Church employed themselves in copying the Gospels and

other portions of the Bible whenever they could get the opportunity.

Copies of the Scriptures, and also prayer books, were generally ornamented in the most beautiful way: for those accomplished and devoted old scribes loved to beautify the sacred writings. Many of the lovely books they wrote are still preserved, of which the most splendid is the Book of Kells, now kept in the Library of Trinity College in Dublin. It is a copy of the Four Gospels, and the language is Latin, though the letters are Irish. It was written by an Irish scribe eleven or twelve hundred years ago, but who he was is not known.

In this Book of Kells, and in others like it, the capitals are ornamented in every part with a kind of interlaced work, all done with the pen, in which bands and ribbons are curved and plaited and woven in the most wonderful way. These plaits and folds are so small and so close together that one must sometimes use a magnifying glass in order to see them plainly; in one space, the size of a half-penny, in a page of a splendid old volume, called the Book of Armagh, the ribbons appear woven in and out more than three hundred times. The Irish used this sort of ornamentation also in metal work and stone work.

Very often large volumes were kept, in which were written compositions of all kinds, both prose and poetry,

such as were thought worth preserving, copied from older books, and written in, one after another, till the volume was filled.

Of all these old books of mixed composition, the largest that remains to us is the Book of Leinster, which is kept in Trinity College in Dublin. It is an immense volume, all in the Irish language, written more than seven hundred and fifty years ago; and many of the pages are now almost black with age and very hard to make out. It contains a great number of pieces, in prose and in verse, and nearly all of them about Ireland

histories, accounts of battles, lives and adventures of great men, with many tales and stories of things that happened in that country in far-distant ages.

The Book of the Dun Cow is in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. It is fifty years older than the Book of Leinster, but not so large; and it also contains a great number of tales and histories, nearly all relating to Ireland, and all written in the Irish language. Its name was derived from the following circumstance: St. Kieran of Clonmacnoise had a favorite brown cow, whose skin when she died he caused to be turned into parchment, of which a book was made. But this old book no longer exists it was lost ages ago; and the present Book of the Dun Cow is only a copy of it.

Three other great Irish books kept in Dublin are the