9. After Nero had been a prisoner for some weeks, a party of sailors, Jack being among the number, paid a visit to the menagerie. The keeper warned them not to go near the lion, who every now and then turned round to growl defiance to the spectators.

10. "What! old shipmate!" cried Jack, "don't you know me? "What cheer, old Nero, my lad?"

11. Instantly the lion left off growling, sprang up to the bars of his cage, and put his nose between them. Jack patted him on the head, and he rubbed Jack's hand with his whiskers like a cat, showing evident signs of pleasure.

12. "Ah," said Jack, turning to the keeper and spectators, "Nero and I were shipmates, and you see he isn't like some folks, he doesn't forget an old friend.”

FABLE OF THE PIN AND NEEDLE.

1. In a pleasant room lay a pin and needle, side by side, in a pretty little work-box. Having nothing to do, they began to quarrel, as idle boys and girls very often do.

2. "I should like to know," said the pin, "what you are good for, and how you expect to get through the world without a head?

3. "What is the use of your head without an eye?" replied the needle.

4. "What is the use of an eye if you always have something in it?" was the retort.

5. "I am more active and useful than you," said the needle.

6. "Yes, but you will not live long." Why not?"

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"Because you have always a stitch in your side, and that is very dangerous," said the pin.

7. "You are a poor crooked creature,” said the needle.

"You are so proud that you can not bend without breaking your back," said the pin. 8. "I will pull your head off, if you insult

me again!"

"I will put your eye out if you touch meremember, your life hangs by a single thread,” said the pin.

9. Thus they went on, and it is impossible to say when the quarrel would have ended, had not a little girl come in, who, attempting to sew with the needle, broke it off at the eye. Then she tied the thread around the pin, and, trying to sew with that, soon pulled its head off, and threw it on the floor by the side of the broken needle.

10. "Well, here we are," said the needle. "We have nothing to fight about now," said the pin,—"misfortune has brought us to our

senses.

"A pity we had not come to them sooner, said the needle.

11. Thus they lay, side by side, when Margery, the house-maid, swept them up with the dust, and threw them away.

12. MORAL.-So it is with many of us, who quarrel about our blessings until we lose them, and never appreciate the merits and good-will of our companions, until we are brought low together.

1. "Do you want to buy any berries to-day?" said a poor boy to me one afternoon. I looked at the little fellow, and he was very shabbily clothed; gray pantaloons, very much patched, an old cotton shirt, and a miserable felt hat made up the whole of his dress.

2. His feet were bare and travel-stained. In both hands he held up a tin pail full of ripe and dewy raspberries, which were pretty, peeping out from amid the bright green leaves that lay lightly over them.

3. I told him I would like some; and taking the pail from him, I stepped into the house. He did not follow, but remained behind, whistling to my canaries as they hung in their cage in the porch. He seemed engrossed with my pretty pets, and the berries seemed forgotten.

4. "Why did you not come in and see if I measured your berries right?" said I; "how do you know that I may not cheat you, and take more than the three quarts I have agreed upon?" The boy looked up archly at me and smiled.

5. "I am not afraid," said he, would get the worst of it, ma'am."

"for you

"Get the worst of it?" I said, "what do you mean?"

6. "Why, ma'am, I should only lose my berries, and you would be stealing; don't you think you would get the worst of it?"

1. The chill November day was done, The working world home faring;