sum of money on condition that you should use it to promote his interest, and your own improvement and happiness, should you think it right to squander it uselessly, or to let it rust without being used at all?

41. Jane. No; but no money has ever been intrusted to me.

42. Julia. Would you sell your life for money?

43. Jane. No, indeed; not for the whole world!

44. Julia. Why? What makes life so valuable?

45. Jane. The enjoyment it brings, to be

sure.

46. Julia. Eating and drinking, I sup

pose.

47. Jane. No; I am no glutton. I have wit enough to see that life is valuable for the opportunities it affords for cultivating our moral and intellectual faculties. But whom do I wrong besides myself, if I neglect their cultivation ?

48. Julia. Whom would you have wronged if you had received the sum of money, and wasted it?

49. Jane. Him who gave it to me.

50. Julia. Do you know what I mean now? 51. Jane. I should, indeed, be stupid, if I did not see that I am accountable to my Maker for the talents He has intrusted to me. But really, Julia, when I proposed an innocent little frolic, I had no idea that I was proposing so serious a project as the wronging of myself, my faithful teacher, my generous father, and my beneficent Creator.

NOT EVERY BLOSSOM BECOMES A PLUM.

1. One day, when Hattie and her father were walking in the garden, admiring the spring flowers and fruit-blossoms, they came to a plum-tree that was all white with its opening buds.

2. "O, father," said the little girl, "see there! How pretty that tree looks!"

3. "It is indeed beautiful, my child," said her father. "Do you know what kind of a

tree it is?"

4. "O, yes," replied Hattie; "it is a plumtree. Shall we not have plenty of plums? 5. "What makes you think that we shall? Because the tree is so full of blossoms.”

6.

?”

7. "And do you really think," said her father, "that the tree will have as many plums on it as it has blossoms?"

8. "To be sure I do; don't you?" was Hattie's reply.

9. "No, my child, I do not think it will. I never knew a tree to have as many plums as it had blossoms. Blossoms do not always bear fruit."

10. Just then there came a sudden gust of wind, which shook the tree under which they were standing, and sent a shower of blossoms to the ground, where they lay like so many flakes of snow.

11. "We shall have lots of plums yet," said Hattie, "for the tree is still full of blossoms."

12. In a few days the blossoms had all disappeared; but when Hattie looked closely into the tree, she saw the little green plums growing out from the ends of the stems, and promising an abundance of fruit.

13. But there were some things in the way that Hattie had not thought of. For there

came storms, and caterpillars, and brown rot, destroying her fruit, and disappointing her hope.

14. Oh! what a contrast between May and September! She expected to get "lots of plums "-she got only a quart! She could have cried about it, if that would have done any good. But tears never yet made plums, so she wisely concluded not to cry, but to make the most of what she had.

15. Hattie's father thought he could turn this to good account. So he said to her one day, "Hattie, do you know why you are like this plum-tree?"

16. "Like a plum-tree!" said Hattie, laughing. "I'm sure I'm not like a plum-tree; I don't look like one, do I?"

17. "You certainly do not look like a plumtree, my child. But still you are very much like this one.

18. "Do you remember, Hattie," said he, "how much work you planned for last Saturday? One would have thought, to hear you, that you expected to out-work a dozen common girls. And do you remember how, when the day was gone, you had done little or nothing? Plenty of blossoms, you see, but not many plums.

19. "And look at your little garden. Last spring I dug it up for you, and helped you to transplant flowers, and for a time you kept the weeds down. But you soon grew weary, and for a long while it has been all choked with weeds. Here again are blossoms and but little fruit.

20. "It is just so with your studies. Your teacher tells me that you can learn as easily as any girl in the school, if you choose. But she also says that you soon get tired of trying. You study hard for a while, and then give it up. Here again are many blossoms and few plums.

21. "I fear, too, that you are not so careful as you ought to be about keeping your promises. You are more ready to promise than to perform. This tree, last spring, promised much fruit, but see how little has come from it!"

22. Poor girl! she little thought while watching her plum-tree, and sorrowing because it had so little fruit, that her dear parents were watching her, and sorrowing because she had fallen into evil ways.

23. But when her father thus kindly and plainly told her, she saw it all, and resolved