At a late scientific journey of Monsieur Flammarion in a balloon, the aeronauts having hovered over a village in Prussia, the peasantry imagined that they were French spies sent to take the plan of their country with hostile intentions, and seeing the balloon descending they sent off for the gendarmes of the village, who arrived just as the travellers alighted, and were explaining the cause of their journey to the incredulous rustics. "We must examine your instruments," said the Prussian, jumping into

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The Viceroy of Egypt, before leaving France, bought 81 silk dresses for his numerous wives, dresses that cost him 47,000 francs. That is something like a husband, and he deserves the forty mistresses of his heart. Yours truly,

S. A.

MILLY'S DREAM.

BY EBEN REXFORD.

Little Milly sat down by the window, and looked out upon the green meadow. She heard the brown robin singing to his nestful of downy children on the old cherry-tree by the gate, and saw the gay yellow butterflies flying through the warm, sunshiny air, as lazily and slowly as though there was nothing for them to do but enjoy life.

But she was not listening to the robin's sweet hymn, or watching the velvet-coated butterflies. If you could have looked into her brown eyes, you would have seen, oh! such a far-off look, as though she was trying to look away down into the years that were to come. And you could have told, by looking into those sweet, clear eyes of hers, that the tears were not far away from the veined eyelids, as she sat there by the window on that pleasant afternoon.

"Oh, dear!" Milly said at last, with such a sad little sorrowful sigh that I know you would have had tears in your eyes to have heard it "Oh, how I wish folks never could die, but live always! Poor mamma! Poor mamma!" And then the little brown head, all over rings of silky shining hair, fell on the little hands clasped together on the window-sill, and Minny closed her eyelids together very closely, to keep back the tears that would come, in spite of all efforts to keep them down. How terribly her heart throbbed, with its sorrow, and its fond memories of the mother she had lost, and the remembrance of the low grassy grave where she was sleeping!

Just one month before, they had laid Milly's mother down under the long grass and the daisies on the hill-side, and Milly thought, when they took her away from the new-made grave, that her heart was breaking. How could she go back to the home where everything told of mother, and where mother's loving words and winning ways and smiles had left an influence that would always last? How could she lay down at night in her little white bed without first kneeling at mother's knee and saying her little prayer, and feeling her good-night kiss upon her forehead, and hearing her say, in the sweetest of all voices she had ever known

And

God bless and keep my little Milly?" when the last sod had been laid over the grave, and the old white-haired minister had said the last words of the solemn and beautiful burialservice, she had thrown herself down upon the earth that covered away from her sight forever the form of her best and truest friend, and had remained there, weeping, oh, so bitterly! and with such an awful feeling of loneliness at her heart, till her father had taken her up tenderly from the ground, and carried her back, along the meadow-path, to the home where such a desolating shadow had fallen.

How still and empty the old house seemed when the old way of living was taken up again! But it was not the old way either, for there was something gone out of it. There was a great blank, and nothing could be found to fill it. When we lose our mother, we lose something that can never be replaced or made up to us again. We have a void in our hearts, and there is a sense of loss all about us. Everything tells us of the dear one who used to smooth our

tation, and ask for strength. Ask him every morning, when you rise up from your bed, to be near you through the day, and He will put His love around you and hold you up in your daily life, be it pleasant or full of thorny places.

"Remember that God is over all, and that He is wiser in all things than we can ever be. What He wills is always for the best, and as such we should always accept it. Never murmur at his work. Bow beneath His rod if He chastens; but look up, believing and trusting that it shall lead to something that shall work for good to you. Do always as if God's visible eyes were on you, and you will have His peace and presence always with you."

Milly's mother bent down and kissed her child's white face again, with the glory of the other world shining out from her clear, sweet eyes. The deep and solemn words she had uttered for her child's instruction, struck home to Milly's heart and made a deep and lasting impression there.

And with that last kiss, Milly awoke from her sleep-awoke to find that it had all been a dream, and that no mother's arms had been around her, no mother's voice made pleasant music in her ear.

But, somehow, the sad and dreary sense of utter loneliness was gone. There was a lonely feeling still, and always would be, when she thought of mother; but she felt as though there was another Friend, upon whom she could depend, a Friend who only waited for her to ask Him to help her. She wondered that she had not thought of Him before. She had thought of Him, but not as one who could take the place of her lost mother, or lessen the weight of grief that had fallen on her young life. But now she turned toward the Source of all blessings, and asked that He would guide her, and be a Friend better than all other friends to her. And Milly knew that her prayer was answered, for a great peace stole into her heart, and she felt a deep and sacred trust in God's goodness and mercy. That night, Milly crept up into her father's lap and told him of her dream. He listened to her simple story; and while she told him of her mother's words of comfort and advice, he too felt that God was a true friend to every one who seeks Him. And when Milly's bedtime came, she knelt at her father's knee and said her little prayer, and felt that God's love would make life worth living for, even if it must be without her mother's presence in their earthly home.

SQUIRREL FANNY.

"That's my papa!" shouted little Eddie, as a well-known step was heard on the stairs, at the close of the short winter's day, and Master Eddie bounded to the door.

His exclamation of "Oh papa! what have you got? What is it?" in such an eager tone, drew us all to the door,

"Softly, my son ;" and Eddie's father placed what we thought at first a box, but which we elders soon saw was a squirrel-cage, on a table in the dining-room.

"But what is it, papa?" the four-year-old Eddie kept asking, till we all volunteered an explanation.

"A real live squirrel, and all my own?" and with wistful eyes and almost suspended breath the boy waited for Mrs. Squirrel to come out and shew herself. But nothing would make her leave her nest in the "little house," as Eddie called it, and so the little fellow had to be contented that night with hearing the story of how his father came by it.

"Bought it of a boy who caught it in a trap, and has partly tamed it, named it Fanny, and sold it to me," was papa's explɛ nation.

Eddie went to bed, after stealing out to the dining-room in his night-gown to see if Mrs. Fanny had not ventured out. And as no sign of life appeared around the cage, he was halfinclined to believe it all a hoax. But next morning, lying in his crib, he heard a noise as though a mouse was scrambling about in the diningroom. Creeping softly down from his crib, he opened the door just as softly, and peeped out. There stood the cage on the table, and the wheel was going so swiftly that for a moment the boy could hardly tell what propelled it. But soon he saw a pair of shining eyes, a long, bushy tail, and with a shout the boy sprang forwards, frightening the little creature back to its retreat, and awakening us all.

"I saw it; I did, papa. But won't it come out again?" he said as he clambered back to bed to wait till the fire was kindled.

Squirrel Fanny grew tamer as the days went on, and grew to love little Eddie and recognize him as her master. She was a beautiful little creature, with her sleek grey fur, her bright eyes and long tail, which, when covered over her back, made her look, as Eddie said, as though she was "sitting in a rocking-chair."

Eddie, and indeed all of us, spent many pleasant moments watching her as she ate her food in her nice, delicate manner, or whirled the wheel round and round so swiftly that she seemed a little bunch of fur rolling over when she stopped running and clung to the wires and let herself turn with them.

After a time, Eddie's father ventured to open the door and give Mrs. Fanny the liberty of the room, and she grew so tame that she used to run all about, perching herself on Eddie's shoulder, and diving into his pockets to get the nuts and corn he always carried there for her. She would eat cake, bread, and apples, and I think was very happy in her in-doors life.

I remember, one day, the sharp nibble she gave my finger. I was sitting on the floor talking with Eddie's mother, with my hand on the floor beside me, when a sharp twinge made me draw it quickly up, and off ran Mrs. Fanny as if afraid of a whipping. Eddie said she thought the end of my finger a piece of bread, and Ed.

die's father said she thought to give me a lesson against sitting on the floor. So I got not much pity.

And two other sly tricks I remember of hers. One was the running up the sleeve of Eddie's mamma's dress, as that lady sat at the tea-table one night. Squirrel Fanny jumped on her lap, ran up the deep flowing sleeve to her shoulder. Of course the lady screamed, for Fanny's little sharp claws were not very pleasant to feel. But as her husband said, she shouldn't wear "such abominations as those big sleeves!"

Now the pride of the lady's heart, just then, and the chief ornament of her dining-room, was her new extension table. It was a New Year's gift, and very much the lady prized it. Whether Mrs. Fanny heard all the talk about its being "real black walnut," and wanted to find out for herself, I don't know, but I do know that one day being all alone in the dining-room, she deliberately gnawed little bits out of the edge of the new table in spaces of a few inches apart. For this naughtiness she was sentenced to close confinement in her cage for a week.

Poor Eddie felt almost as badly as Fanny because of her disgrace, and pleaded very eloquently in her behalf that she might be forgiven, and at last she was again allowed the freedom of the room, with strict injunctions to her little master

never again to leave her alone when out of the cage.

Now Mrs. Fanny lived and thrived a year or two after this, and was really regarded as one of the family. But, alas! one day, she refused to eat, the next she seemed too weak to move, and all the dainties her little master procured for her would not tempt her appetite. And one morning she was found dead. There was mourning and some weeping in the family, just then; for, as Eddie said, "If papa didn't cry, he wanted to." Sure am I that if the rest of us didn't cry for Fanny, we cried out of sympathy with Eddie, who shed tears no boy need be ashamed of.

Mrs. Fanny did not have a funeral, as most pets do. But her little body was sent to the city, and in a week her skin, stuffed and mounted on a stand, came back, and was placed on the "what-not” in the parlour.

"Looks just like Fanny; but oh, dear! it isn't her," was Eddie's comment, when he first saw it.

All this happened some years ago. Eddie is a lad now; but if ever his eye sees this sketch of "Fanny Squirrel," he will be pleased to learn her biography has been given to the world; and better still to learn that both he and his squirrel are not forgotten by COUSIN VARA.

The rapacious birds are remarkable for their length of sight. A hawk has been known to distinguish a lark, coloured like the clod on which it was sitting, at twenty times the distance at which it could be distinguished by a man. Those which, like the swallow, capture insects on the wing, are remarkable for quickness of sight, accomplishing the feat without failure while flying at the rate of three miles in a minute.

The sense of smell is not highly developed in birds; in the crows and vultures the sense is acute, though some naturalists believe that even these birds become cognizant of their food more by sight than by smell.

The sense of hearing is tolerably acute, and some of the nocturnal birds have external cartilaginous ears.

The tongues of birds are employed to obtain food, and, except in a few species, do not appear to serve as an organ of taste.

BIRDS.

The sense of touch seems to be generally obtuse; but in such birds as search in the mud

for their food, where neither sight nor smell abundantly supplied with the nerves of sensacan guide them, the bill is covered with a skin tion, which aid them to find sustenance.

II. THE BLACK UNDER-SHIRTS. The small order of birds which winter in America, no matter what the colour of their feathers, have a coating of black down next to their bodies. Black is the warmest colour; and the Creator has given them this inner covering to keep in the heat arising from the heart and circulation of the blood. This provision is not found in large birds; small birds are more exposed to the cold than large ones, because they present, in proportion to their bulk, a much larger surface to the air.

III. EACH BIRD HIS OWN BARBER. Each bird is its own barber. Its bill serves