generally, and I have never seen the inside of a church since I went there. Do ask Mrs. Norris to let me go back; I will try to please her, indeed I will! And so she did. WHAT MAY HAPPEN TO A THIMBLE. COME about the meadow, Where's mother's thimble? Fan saw it fall, Ned isn't sure That she dropped it at all. Has a mouse carried it Can she be darning there, Ere the light fails, Did a finch fly with it Into the hedge? Or a reed-warbler Down in the sedge? Are they carousing there All the night through? Such a great goblet, Brimful of dew! Have beetles crept with it Neat little kennel, Have the ants covered it With straw and sand? Roomy bell-tent for them, So tall and grand. Where the red soldier ants Lie, loll, and lean; While the blacks steadily Build for their queen. Has a huge dragon-fly To his snug dressing-room Nobody watching But one water-rat? Did the flowers fight for it, Slipped it aside ? Now has she plunged it in Did spiders snatch at it, At the bright pebbles Which lie in the brook? Now are they using it? (Nobody knows), Safe little diving-bell, Shutting so close ! Did a rash squirrel there, Wanting to dine, Think it some foreign nut, Dainty and fine? Can he have swallowed it Up in that oak? We, if we listen, Shall soon hear him choke. Has it been buried by Cross imps and hags, Or have fays hidden it, Hunt for it, hope for it, All through the moss; Dig for it, grope for it, I find the thimble Which is mother's own! Run with it, fly with it, All did their best for it Mother thanks all. Think what a shame! Ned says he's sure That it isn't the same. From "CHILD-WORLD." THE ARITHMETIC PRIZE. "I SAY, Ted, who will get the arithmetic prize this year ?" said a rosy-faced little boy to one of his friends, as they raced out of school. What, in the first-class? Why, my brother, of course. Who did you think?" "Well, I did not know; but father said, last night at tea-time, that he should ask the committee to let him have a boy out of the first class to help with the little ones: and he said he thought whoever got the arithmetic prize would-but I forgot, I was not to say anything about it." "Well, you have said something now," replied Ted Musgrove. "I hope Phil won't get the place. I should like to see him teaching me! He is always at his books! Father says it frightens him to see Phil's book of figures. He's doing fractions now, denominators, and mixed numbers, and I don't know what all. There is one awful-looking sum, that slopes all over the slate. I did ask him about that, and he said I was to go on dividing till it came to nothing. I don't know what he meant; and when I asked him, he said, 'Don't bother!' Oh, I do hate sums! at least what you do on a slate." "You mean you like mental arithmetic?" said the schoolmaster's son, who was given to long words. "Yes, I don't mind reckoning in my head, for then no one can ask how one did the thing, and it comes out right somehow." "I suppose," said a third boy, who had joined the two others, "Phil does all the books now, doesn't he ?" "No, he don't; he says he hasn't time; and mother says he is not to be teased, he is so clever; and so I have to help her all I can. Sometimes, I wish Phil wasn't so very clever, he might be of some use; but I forget, I was to go down to the D |