agree with the Bible," said Bertram, rather unwillingly.

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You mean that you consider yours do. And your opinion is, that giving to the poor is altogether useless and even wrong. I do not know how you can reconcile such an idea with texts like these." And Leonard quoted rapidly two or three verses in succession: "Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.' 'He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give: not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.' 'He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor.' 'He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will He pay him again."" Bertram was silent, opening and shutting his penknife with an uneasy air. Constance remarked, half to herself,

"I always like that last verse so much."

Ay!" returned Captain Vivian, thoughtfully. "It is a wonderful thing, that though 'the silver and gold are the Lord's,' yet He not only entrusts it to us, but when we use it in His service, He graciously speaks of it as lent to Himself, and promises to repay it. How unlike man's ways with regard to money!" "Do you think it is always paid back?" asked Constance, slowly.

"There is the promise that it shall be, Constance. That it will be fully and doubly repaid in Heaven, I have not the smallest doubt. But I believe also, that even in this world we are rarely permitted to lose in the end by what we have given in the service of God, or to suffer from the want of it. I believe it is almost invariably made up to us in one way or another, and that the very act of laying aside part of our possessions for the service of the Lord brings a blessing upon the remainder. But you must remember that it is not by any means those who give the largest amount of pounds, shillings, and pence, who necessarily lend most to God. A hundred pounds may be presented in charity, from a desire to shine in the eyes of others, or from some less unworthy motive, and yet bring no blessing with it, while a single shilling may be given in simple faith and love, which will bear fruit to eternity—even a single penny or farthing. God does not measure the amount by our standard.” "No," said Constance.

"But still a penny

or a shilling could not really do so much good as a hundred pounds."

"That depends entirely upon God's blessing, Constance," said Leonard seriously. "Without God's blessing such a gift might do infinite harm to the receiver."

Constance was silent, and then said again,— "But a shilling is much less than a hundred pounds. It always must be so."

"Not always, Constance, or at least only when measured by our standard. Our Saviour said of the poor widow, that her two mites were more than all the rich gifts of the other people

literally more. For God looks to the heart, and estimates the amount by the proportion it bears to a man's possessions, and the degree of self-denial involved in the gift, rather than by the actual quantity. Do you not understand? Suppose there was one man with fifty pounds a year, and that out of that he gave five away in charity; and suppose there was another with a hundred thousand pounds a year, and out of that he gave fifty. Which would give the most in the sight of God-I mean apart from the motives by which they were actuated?"

"The poor man. Yes, I understand what you mean. Then Beatrice gives a great deal more than I do," added Constance, half to her. self. "I don't think there is much self-denial in what I do. But I am afraid I could never spend so little money on myself as Beatrice does."

"There are very few so unselfish," said Leonard-rather absently, she thought. Then he rose from his seat: "By the bye, I promised Miss Vivian to see her this afternoon, so I must not forget."

"Is Beatrice likely to be there ?" asked Constance, mischievously.

"Miss Vivian did not tell me so," said Leonard, taking up and examining a motherof-pearl paper-cutter that lay upon the table, while a half-smile crossed his face.

"But you know it. It is very curious how often you manage to hit upon the very time that she is there. Does Beatrice inform you before-hand when she is going?

"No, certainly not. Good-bye, Constance;" and Leonard walked to the door to avoid farther questioning. "Don't quarrel with Bertram over the old soldier. I shall be back before long."

As Constance expected, Beatrice was at Miss Vivian's. Leonard stood at the drawing-room door for a moment before he made his presence known, thinking how like a sunbeam she

U

looked in that dark, gloomy room. A strange contrast were the two faces-that of Miss Vivian so shallow and wasted, so restless and unsatisfied in expression; that of Beatrice so fair and peaceful, with its broad calm brow and large quiet eyes. For a moment they lighted up into positive brilliancy as she caught sight of Captain Vivian standing in the doorway, though it was with her usual composed air that she rose to meet him. Miss Vivian looked on with a kind of dry glitter in her hard dark eyes-the nearest approach to a smile of amusement that was ever seen there. "Have you met with your cousin yet?" she inquired abruptly as he shook hands with her. 'My cousin! Oh, Percival Gifford you mean. I was not aware that he was in England."

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"He arrived yesterday, as I know from a note that I have received from him. He intends to be in Rookdale to-day, and I have no doubt I shall see him very soon after his arrival.”

Miss Vivian paused and scrutinized Leonard's face narrowly, expecting to observe signs of dissatisfaction at the least, but he was looking at Beatrice, and responded by an indifferent, "Indeed!"

"I suppose you will see something of him," continued Miss Vivian, and she laughed.

"Possibly! I suppose we are likely to meet one another occasionally, living in the same place."

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You know him personally, do you not ?" "A little-not intimately."

And Leonard branched off, almost without a pause, into another subject, the first that came into his mind, which was Constance's old soldier and her disappointment concerning him. Beatrice suspected that it was from a good-natured dislike to give an unfavourable report of his cousin, in answer to the inquiries that were probably forthcoming. However, Miss Vivian's attention was now successfully diverted from Percival Gifford, and directed to Constance Mansfield.

"A good lesson for her!" was the old lady's remark at the conclusion of the story. "How any man in his senses can bring up his daughter in such spendthrift habits, is past my comprehension."

"You are mistaken, Miss Vivian," said Leonard. "My father does not encourage Constance in careless habits with regard to money. Real generosity he always does, and always will encourage."

"Ay, it sounds very fine," said Miss Vivian.

Young people like to throw their money about, and get credit for being generous and charitable. Very fine and very plausible! They are spendthrifts nevertheless."

"Hardly, Miss Vivian. Constance may be a little too impetuous in her manner of giving, but it is at least a fault on the right side. By and by she will grow steady and prudent."

"Like her father! Very steady and prudent he is!

"Miss Vivian," returned Leonard, quietly. "Mr. Mansfield is my father as well as hers, and you must not expect me to listen to any such insinuations with regard to him. They arise solely from your ignorance of his character."

"Mr. Mansfield is not your father," said Miss Vivian, highly offended. "He is no re

lation of mine."

societies and by those who have anything personally to do with the poor, though I acknowledge that more is done in that way than used to be."

"You would have people ruin themselves for the sake of appearing generous," exclaimed Miss Vivian, beginning to lose temper.

"No," said Leonard, quietly and even gently. "I would simply have them act in accordance with Bible injunctions-with the spirit of our Saviour."

Miss Vivian's brow darkened visibly at the mention of anything like religion.

"Of course, that is always the way, Captain Vivian. Make up your mind to do what you wish, and then find some text in the Bible to prove you are right."

Leonard attempted no argument, but drawing a little Bible from his pocket, he turned over the leaves, and, without preface of any sort, he read aloud a few verses in succession, as he had that afternoon repeated some to Bertram,

"Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.' He that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord, and that which he hath given will He pay him again.' 'He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack; but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse.' 'Charge

them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. Miss Vivian listened in silence-apparently too much amazed at his audacity to interrupt him; and it was not till he paused, that she found voice to say haughtily,

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'I am much obliged to you, Captain Vivian!" Captain Vivian was only answering your objection about the texts," said Beatrice, gently. Of course; I understand very well. Captain Vivian is at perfect liberty to read texts and preach to whom he will, only not in my house! If he has nothing better to talk about, I should very much prefer to be left alone."

Captain Vivian rose in obedience to the hint, but held out his hand with a courteous air of apology,

"I beg your pardon, Miss Vivian, if I have spoken too strongly. I had no intention of hurting your feelings."

Miss Vivian

But his hand was not accepted. looked resolutely away, and with a bow to her, he said good-bye to Beatrice and quitted the

room.

MONG the many marvels which are continually before our eyes, there are few more worthy of observation, or which more forcibly illustrate the condescending wisdom and beneficence of the Creator, than the wonderful instincts, if instincts they are to be called, implanted in the minutest creatures, to enable them to provide for their hourly wants, and to secure the welfare of their progeny, which in the case of insects, for the most part come into existence after the death of the parent.

The most casual observer must have remarked at times, in field or garden, upon the leaf of an oak, or some fruit-bearing tree, a brownish patch of a downy texture, looking not very unlike a mole on the human skin. Did he ever imagine that this was a moth's nest ? Several kinds of moths," says Rymer Jones, "construct very beautiful and curious

nests, impervious to wet, and entirely composed of hair stripped from their own bodies. With this material, which they tear off by means of their pincer-like ovipositor, they first form a soft couch on the surface of some leaf; they then place upon it successively layers of eggs, and surround them with a similar downy coating; afterwards, when the whole number is deposited, they cover the surface with a roof of hairs, the disposition of which cannot be too much admired. Those used for the interior of the nest are scattered without order, but those that are placed externally are arranged with as much art and skill as the thatch of a cottage, and as effectually keep out water. One layer of these hairs partially overlaps another, and all having the same direction, the whole resembles a well-brushed piece of shaggy cloth or fur. When the mother has finished this labour, which often occupies

her for twenty-four hours, and sometimes for even twice that period, her body, which before was extremely hairy, is rendered almost wholly naked; she has stripped herself to clothe her offspring, and having performed this last duty of her life, she dies."

Many have seen the chrysalis of the butterfly hanging by its tail to a leaf of the hawthorn or a rose-bush, without perhaps considering how the caterpillar accomplished the business of suspending himself by the tail by means of silk spun from his mouth, while encased in a skin which must be cast off before the process is finished. Let us see how he sets about it. "When the caterpillar has selected an object to which it proposes suspending itself, the first process is to spin upon it a little hillock of silk, consisting of loosely interwoven threads; it then bends its body so as to insinuate the anal pair of prolegs amongst these threads, in which the little crotchets which surround them become so strongly entangled as to support its weight with ease. It now hangs perpendicularly from its silken support, with its head downwards. In this position it often remains for twentyfour hours, at intervals alternately contracting and dilating itself. At length the skin is seen to split on the back, near the head, and a portion of the pupa appears, which, by repeated swellings, acts like a wedge, and rapidly extends the slit towards the tail. By the continuance of these alternate contractions and dilatations of the conical pupa, the skin of the caterpillar is at last collected in folds near the tail, like a stocking which we roll upon the ancle before withdrawing it from the foot. But now comes the important operation. The pupa being much shorter than the caterpillar, is yet at some distance from the silken hillock upon which it is to be fastened; it is supported merely by the unsplit terminal portion of the latter's skin. How shall it disengage itself from this remnant of its case, and be suspended in the air while it climbs up to its place? Without arms or legs to support itself, the anxious spectator expects to see it fall to the earth. His fears, however, are vain: the supple segments of the pupa's abdomen serve in the place of arms. Between two of these, as with a pair of pincers, it seizes on a portion of the skin, and bending its body once more, entirely extricates its tail from it. It is now wholly out of the skin, against one side of which it is supported, but yet at some distance from the leaf. The next step is to climb up to the required height. For this purpose it

repeats the same ingenious manœuvre; making its cast-off skin serve as a sort of ladder, it successively, with different segments, seizes a higher and a higher portion, until in the end it reaches the summit, where, with its tail, it feels for the silken threads which are to support it. But how can the tail be fastened to them? This difficulty has been provided against by creative wisdom. The tail of the pupa is furnished with numerous little hooks pointing in different directions, and some of these hooks are sure to fasten themselves upon the silk the moment the tail is thrust amongst it. Its labours are now nearly completed, but one more exertion remains; it seems to have as great an antipathy to its cast-off skin as one of us would when newly clothed, after a long imprisonment, to the prison-garments we had put off. It will not suffer this memento of its former state to remain near it, and it is therefore no sooner suspended in security than it endeavours to make it fall. For this end it seizes with its tail the threads to which the skin is fastened, and then very rapidly whirls itself round, often not fewer than twenty times. By this manœuvre it generally succeeds in breaking them, and the skin falls down. Sometimes, however, the first attempt fails; in that case, after a moment's rest, it makes a second, twirling itself in an opposite direction, and this is rarely unsuccessful. After these exertions, it hangs the remainder of its existence in this state until the butterfly is disclosed."

Some larvæ, in an equally ingenious manner, suspend themselves horizontally by means of a girth of silk wound many times round their bodies; others, the leaf-rolling caterpillars, roll up a portion of a leaf of a plant in the form of a cylinder, in the interior of which they spin their cocoons and pass their pupa condition. The work is managed thus: the little labourer first begins by spinning silken threads, which it fastens to the edge of the leaf by one end, whilst the other is attached to a distant part of the leaf's surface; she then pulls at these cables one after another with her feet, so as at each effort to bend the edge of the leaf a little inwards, in which position she fastens it by means of additional threads. This operation is repeated again and again, and as the ropes are thus progressively shortened, the leaf becomes gradually folded more and more, until at length it is bent into a roll, and securely tied in that position by innumerable silken filaments of sufficient strength to resist the resiliency of the material employed.

It is interesting and amusing at times to watch the motions of a working bee in its busy pursuit after the two things which constitute its treasures, the pollen and the honey. The visit which it pays to each flower is of very short duration, helping itself to pollen first, and to honey, if there be any, which is not always the case, afterwards. Honey, indeed, in the proper sense of the word, it does not get at all from the flowers; but it sucks a sweet fluid, which is afterwards elaborated into honey in its own stomach, and thence regurgitated into the waxen cells of the hive. We may add, moreover, that the bee does not collect the wax, as some suppose the wax being nothing more than a secretion from its own body, a provision of nature for the exigencies of its architecture. The bee appears to sweep the pollen together, making besoms of its hairy hind-legs, and then in a manner to dredge it into certain small receptacles on the outward surface of its thighs. This is not always a silent process, but is mostly accompanied with a subdued hum, while the performer fidgets about, sweeping the whole calyx of the flower in by no means a neat and cleanly fashion, and leaving a portion for the next comer. The sucking process, however-by which it is to be supposed he pumps the sweet fluid which is to become honey, into his stomach-is always one of profound stillness, and it is to be hoped, of enjoyment as well. It happens sometimes that the industrious and thirsty epicure is baulked, after having secured the pollen, in his attempts to get at the delicious nectar; but if he is perplexed, it is but for a moment; if he cannot get at it one way, he tries another. Look at him engaged with a larkspur in full bloom. There is but little pollen, or bee-bread, to be got from this flower, and he has soon done with the open blossom; but the larkspur wears a long and slightly curling horn in the rear, and in that, at the very extremity of it, is the fluid which Master Bee is in search of. To reach it at the natural opening is out of the question. The orifice would not admit the smallest pin's head, and the tube is two-thirds of an inch long. What does he do? He quietly crawls round to the end of the tube, and by means of some apparatus with which a kind Providence has furnished him, drills a small hole in the extremity of it, inserts his pumping engine, and drains the vessel dry. Upon plucking the flowers thus rifled, and examining them, the holes will be found neatly drilled, the soft fibre

of the flower being removed in the operation,— the hole being clean, without jagged edges, and not larger than would be made by the puncture of a shirtmaker's needle.

The "cricket on the hearth" is the sentimental and poetical favourite of a good many people who are not obliged to be his near neighbour, while he is the nuisance and plague of a very numerous class whose fireside comforts, when they have any, are on the kitchen floor. Whether we look upon him as a pet or a plague, we are certainly not in the habit of attributing to him anything like sagacity or forethought. We see him and his tribe by hundreds walking by night, along with silly cockroaches, into a dish of stale beer, to drink and drown ingloriously, or, jumping headlong into a basin of scalding tea, to perish in a boiling bath. But the cricket is not altogether a fool. The following is recorded of him: "Sitting the other day by the kitchen fire, to dry ourselves after a sudden shower, we noticed Mr. Cricket popping up his head from a crack in the hearthstone. We thought perhaps he might be hungry, and dropped a few small crumbs near his hole, Our shadow startled him, and he disappeared for an instant. In a moment or two, however, he came boldly forth, walked to the largest crumb, seized it and carried it to his hiding-place, returning immediately, until he had fetched them all. We tried him again with larger pieces-several much larger than himself. Most of these he carried off with perfect ease; but mark the perfection of his instinct. The hole in the stone from which he emerged was barely large enough to admit of his passage: when he carried small pieces of bread, he ran rapidly down the hole head foremost; but with larger pieces, he invariably got into the hole backwards, pulling the bread after him, evidently to avoid the possibility of blocking up the hole, and thus preventing his own escape in case of alarm. At last there remained one piece too large for him to remove. He now called a companion to assist; the two together dragged it to the mouth of the hole, where they ensconced themselves safely, and then, with bodies half protruded, set to work to reduce the mass to admissible dimensions, a task which it took them twenty minutes to accomplish ere the last crumb was safely housed."

The ant-lion employs rather singular measures in procuring its food. In its perfect state it closely resembles the dragon-fly; it has a small head, a very moveable neck, and