to-morrow, and by ranking me hereafter among your friends.'

The next morning saw the poor officer at breakfast with the marshal. His clothes were almost threadbare, but clean and well brushed; his thin cheeks and whole appearance betokened poverty, if not want; but his manners and conversation were those of a gentleman. The marshal was very much struck with the man, and asked him if some misfortune had overtaken him. He also asked him why he had so strongly resisted being searched the day before, when he knew he had not the snuff-box about him.

'Well,' said the poor officer, 'in answering one question I shall be answering both. I will tell you a little of my history. I am an officer in the army, but at present only on half-pay. For many years I have been the sole support of an invalid sister, whom I love more than my own life. For three weeks past I have lived upon bread and water, or nearly so, in order that my scanty means might go to her support. Yesterday I was reduced to my last shilling, and I knew not what to do until my pay should again become due. In the morning. I called upon a friend, a former brother-officer, intending to acquaint him with my present circumstances; but my heart failed me, and I concealed my true position from him. He asked me to have dinner with him, and I consented; but I was all the time wishing my poor sister could have a little of the dainties set before us. Just at that moment an opportunity seemed to favour my wishes. My friend was called away from the table, and in his absence I took up the leg and wing of a fowl from my plate, wrapped them in a piece of paper, and stuffed them into my pocket. When he returned, seeing my plate pretty

empty, he remarked that he was glad I had not waited; at which I smiled.

'On my way home I passed a gaming-house, and the thought was suggested to me that my last shilling might, by a stroke of luck, be made into many shillings. It was my first venture into a place of that kind, and it shall be my last. Well, sir, you know the rest. When the idea of searching was suggested, the thought of the piece of fowl being found in my pocket was more terrible to me than that of fighting all the room round.'

The marshal sympathized with the man, presented him with a captain's commission, and gave him a purse of guineas to aid his invalid sister and enable him to join his regiment.

What were they? you ask; you shall presently see: These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea; Oh no-for such properties wondrous had they, That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could weigh;

Together with articles, small or immense,

From mountains and planets to atoms of sense;

Nought was there too bulky but there it could lay,
And nought so ethereal but there it would stay ;
And nought so reluctant but in it must go-
All which some examples more clearly will show.

The first thing he tried was the head of Voltaire,
Which retained all the wit that had ever been there;
As a weight he threw in a torn scrap of a leaf,
Containing the prayer of the penitent thief;
When the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell,
As to bound like a ball on the roof of his cell.

Next time he put in Alexander the Great,

With a garment that Dorcas had made for a weight;

And though clad in armour from sandals to crown,
The hero rose up, and the garments went down.

A long row of alms-houses, amply endowed
By a well-esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud,
Now loaded one scale, while the other was pressed
By those mites the poor widow dropped into the
chest;

Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce, And down, down the farthing's worth came with a bounce.

By further experiments,—no matter how,—

He found that ten chariots weighed less than one plough.

A sword with gilt trappings rose up in the scale,
Though balanced by only a tenpenny nail.
A lord and a lady went up at full sail,

When a bee chanced to 'light on the opposite scale.
Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl,
Ten counsellors' wigs, full of powder and curl,

All heaped in one balance, and swinging from thence, Weighed less than some atoms of candour and

sense.

A first-water diamond, with brilliants begirt,

Than one good potato just washed from the dirt; Yet not mountains of silver and gold would suffice One pearl to outweigh-'twas 'the pearl of great price.'

At last the whole world was bowled in at the gate, With the soul of a beggar to serve as a weight; When the former sprang up with so strong a rebuff, That it made a vast rent, and escaped at the roof, While the scale with the soul in so mightily fell, That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell.

JANE TAYLOR.

LESSON 52.

STORIES OF HEROES.

I. LORD NELSON.

ca-reer, course of action

com-pen-sat-ed, made amends

con-fid-ing, trusting

man-i-fest-ed, showed plainly peer-age, rank of a nobleman rep-ri-mand-ed, reproved

de-terred, kept back by fear sub-se-quent, following

Horatio Nelson, the son of a clergyman in Norfolk, was born on the 29th of September 1758. He was a delicate child, and fears were entertained that he would have but a brief and undesirable existence. Still, in early life he manifested a bold

spirit, that more than compensated for absence of physical strength.

When a very little boy he strayed away from his grandmother's house while on a visit there.

His long absence created alarm, and caused a search for him to be made. After a time he was found sitting by the side of a stream which he had vainly tried to cross. When taken home, his grandmother