got hold of me and tried to make me work for him, but I managed to escape, for none of us like the idea of working for somebody else, without any profit to ourselves, as slaves do. Then with a great deal of trouble I built one room, all by myself, and laid my eggs in it, and that was the beginning of this fine colony, that stretches for unnumbered inches on either side." And the Ant drew herself up, proudly.

"Then all the ants that I see about here are your children and grandchildren?" said Harry.

"No, they are not! many of them are my servants, and have been taken prisoners in war, and obliged to work for me; they did not like it at first, but they soon got used to it, and now they do our repairs, and enlarge our dwelling, and take care of our young ones and our cattle, and make themselves generally useful."

"It is all very wonderful," said Harry, "but the strongest part of it is that you should keep cattle."

"What, the aphides? I sometimes wonder what we should do without them, their honey-dew is so very nice and fattening, and they are such gentle, intelligent creatures. They do not, of course, know nearly as much as we do, for ants are among the cleverest miners, masons, and carpenters in the world."

"And you store up provisions in the summer, to last you through the winter, don't you?" asked Harry.

"There is a tradition handed down from very ancient times that in warm countries the ants store up food for the winter, but in England the winters are so very

unpleasant that we prefer to go to sleep until spring comes and wakes us up. I believe that in those warm countries we flourish amazingly, and build splendid houses, and lead very jolly lives."

"You would like to live there, would you not?" the little boy asked.

"Well, I am quite contented with my English farmhouse," said the Ant; "there are traditions that very awful creatures live in those warm countries, so dreadful indeed, that one almost fears to shuddered as she spoke.

name them." She

Oh, what sort of creatures?" asked Harry; “goblins?"

"Worse," said the Ant, turning quite a light brown, which was her way of growing pale; "come closer, and I will try to tell you their name."

Harry went nearer to her, and she whispered, “ Anteaters."

"Ah," said he, "and are there none here?"

"No, not one; there is nothing worse here than young partridges, and human beings: now in warm countries we sometimes make successful war against these last; our armies march across a whole district, and destroy the food of man, and spoil his works; here we live more peaceably, and indeed I was rather disposed to think well of men and women, until you told me this morning that they copy our follies, and even go beyond them. I do not wonder now that ants in general despise them, as big lumbering creatures, with very little sense."

"A good many of their ways remind one very much of the ways of ants," said GREAT A; "and now, before we leave, will you accept this copy of a moral song, to be learnt by the young ants? I have so much to do with books that I am often able to make choice little extracts, suitable for the use of my young friends. Shall I read it?"

The Ant gave him leave to do so, and he read as follows:

THE PHILANTHROPIST.

A tribe of ants lived on the sand,
Beside the ruffled waves;
They had a bit of sugar, and

They had a lot of slaves.

An ant-philanthropist lived near,

And sniffed a "cause" in haste;

"Their slaves," he said, and dropped a tear,

"The sugar never taste."

And so he called his armies forth,

To punish cruel greed;

And write the record of his wrath

In many a ruthless deed.

War, ruin, death; no drop was missed
To fill their brimming cup;
Then, like a true philanthropist,

He ate the sugar up.

"That is a very fine moral song," said the Ant, “and I admire the hero of it, for he not only waged a profitable war, but found an excellent reason for beginning it. This reminds me that I have to send out an expedition against a colony of ants who have several times tried to steal our cattle. They are not well defended just now, so this is a good time for us to attack them, and if we succeed, all their working ants will be our slaves. That is the rule among all races of ants."

As this was a hint that she had serious business on hand, GREAT A took his leave, and he and Harry were shown out through another entrance.

"D

"B

was a BUTTERFLY, flitting around."

O you know what dying is?" This is the first

thing that B said to Harry after GREAT A had left him, and gone back to his books.

"Yes, I think I do," Harry answered; "dying is a sort of going to sleep, only you don't awake any more."

"Don't you, indeed," said B; "come for a walk with me, and see if you can find out something nearer the truth than that."

So they went on through a sort of green darkness, underneath the spreading boughs, where drops of dew were twinkling at mid-day, and every drop was a sun when the light looked on it. The ground was dimpled with scented cowslips, gold, spotted with fire, and tufts of primroses made a light in shady places, and Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like the fair, frail blooms of the pink and white bind-weed. The birds were trying to say