Monkton said that 'one bad habit often leads to another, and one fault to a greater;' and if you begin by talking as you did just now, there is no knowing where you may stop. Do try and break yourself of such a bad habit."

"Well I will, Mary," said James. "You know next 4th of June I shall be twelve years old; and I mean to make a change, and leave off all bad habits then."

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Oh, please, don't wait till then. Why, it's more than a month to the 4th of June !" cried Mary hastily, for she knew that bad habits never stand still. They are like weeds, which if they are not pulled out of the ground when they first appear, will take firmer and firmer root, and grow larger and stronger every day. So it is with bad habits; and Mary knew this, and tried to shew her brother the sin of going on doing wrong wilfully up to a certain day. How did he know that when that day came he would have the will to turn and do right? or, still more serious thought, how did he know that he should live till then, or have time and power to correct the habits in which he was now indulging himself? These were sad and solemn thoughts, and they made poor little Mary very unhappy. James felt that his sister was right; but he shut his eyes to the truth, and had not courage at once to set about what he knew ought to be begun directly.

The 4th of June came, and passed away without the improvement which he had resolved upon; and it was scarcely a week after, that a party of boys were playing at leap-frog in a field near the parsonage. Some were rude and quarrelsome, and presently a dispute arose, in which many bad words were used, and the most holy names were spoken of lightly and without reverence. James Long, I grieve to say it, was one of the party. It was happy indeed for him that Mr. Monkton overheard what passed; he came into the field, and reproved the boys most seriously. Full of shame and grief, and startled to find that he had fallen into that sin of which he had said and believed he never could be guilty, James returned to his home; and from that time he began really to try to correct the bad habit of which I have spoken; but it had taken such firm root, that it cost him much time and pains, much watchfulness and prayer, before he could conquer it. How often he wished that he had taken his sister's advice, and tried at once to correct it!

THE CAT.

THE cat and the donkey are the two animals which idle, thoughtless boys are most apt to use cruelly.

I cannot tell why it is, but they seem to think that there is no harm in setting on a dog to attack a cat, or in hunting and frightening it as much as they can. Do they suppose that it has no feeling? It suffers from pain and fright as much as they do. "Cats are such stupid creatures," I have heard boys say; but this is a great mistake, and I can tell you several stories to prove to you that they often shew both sense and attachment to those who treat them kindly.

I have read that a child's life was once saved by a cat. She went to her mistress, who was sitting by the fire, and, looking up in her face, mewed piteously; then went to the door, and came back again, mewing, and seeming in great distress. The lady did not attend much to this at first, till the cat took hold of her apron with her claw. Then she got up from her seat, and followed her to a small wash-house, where some tubs half-full of water were standing, into one of which a little child, about two years old, had fallen, who would have been drowned but for the sense and affection of this cat.

Another lady had a cat of which she was very fond, and whose dinner was provided regularly by the cook, who used to buy a liver once a week, which was cut into seven pieces, and the cat had one piece each day. It happened that the lady was taken ill, and could not leave her bed. When the cat missed her mistress, she made her way into her room; and, jumping upon her bed, licked her face and hands; then leapt from the bed, and waited very impatiently at the door till it was opened. The moment this was done she ran down stairs; and, to her mistress's great surprise, came back with a piece of liver in her mouth, which she laid on the bed by her side, as if she thought that she was suffering from hunger. Her attentions did not end here; for on the next market-day, when the cook brought in the liver, before she had time to divide it, puss seized it, rushed up stairs with it, and laid it upon her mistress's bed in triumph, as if she meant to say, " See

what a nice dinner I have brought you; pray, get up, and eat it."1

It is said that a nobleman, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London a great many years ago, was agreeably surprised one day by a visit from his favourite cat, which, having found out where her master was, came down the chimney into his room. But the attachment of cats is generally greater to the house in which they have been brought up than to their masters. They have been known to travel thirty miles back to their old home, when the family to which they belonged had moved to another house.

MAURICE FAVELL;

OR, THE SINGING-LESSONS.

LITTLE family party had just returned from their cool refreshing walk in the neighbouring fields, on a pleasant Sunday evening in May, and were now seated round their cottage-door to rest themselves and look

on the fine prospect before them, which would every now and then suggest some good thought or plan of neighbourly kindness to the father of the party, a man of grave yet pleasant aspect. His wife answered or followed up these thoughts in the same spirit; while their children, Susannah and Maurice, sat content to be quiet listeners. Soon, however, they were interrupted by the approach of a neighbour.

"Good evening, Master Favell," said James Dixon, the new-comer. "Hot enough, isn't it?"

1 Fennell's History of Quadrupeds.

"Why, I can't say," said the other; "we have been just thinking what a nice cool air there is here." "Well,” said James, “ I never was hotter in all my life than I was this afternoon at church."

"No wonder, James," said Mrs. Favell, compassionately: "it must be like a hard day's work to you to play and flourish as you do on your flute. It's a perfect surprise to me how you contrive to get so many notes into a minute as you do."

James looked pleased at this compliment, and answered eagerly," It went off well-didn't it, Mrs. Favell? and yet" (with rather an altered expression) "do you know our parson does not seem so well pleased as you do, and most other folks do, I believe. I met him but just now in the village, and he began talking about our choice of tunes; he seemed to want to speak fair, but I could see he wasn't pleased, and at last he said he would not like us to sing the last line of each verse more than ten times. At first I thought he was making game of us; so I answered pretty sharp, there was not one in the whole lot of our tunes that sung it as many. But since I have been running one or two over in my head; and I find he must have aimed at that one we played to-day, which happens to be my own favourite; and I must say I take it very unkind, and what I won't put up with, to be chosen out in that way for fault-finding and advice."

"Now there I don't think you are right, James," said Paul Favell. "Mr. Osborne must know best about such matters; and it does not seem reasonable that the lines should be sung over so often. You sit up in the singing-loft, and can't judge, being so busy with your own part; but I can see that the congregation are put out, and there is not one in twenty of them sings."

"Who wants the congregation to sing?" answered James, hastily. "If we only chose what they could join in, it would be a very humdrum affair indeed. No, no; let every one look to his own

part-the parson to his, the congregation to theirs, and the singers to theirs, and then every part will be well done."

"The singers are the congregation, and the congregation should be the singers, by good rights," said Paul Favell; " and it's every body's duty that can, to sing the praises of God in church."

"That can," said James; "but who can, I should like to know, fit to be heard?”

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Why, more than you think for, perhaps, if there were plain and easy tunes to sing," answered his friend.

"Let them try, then," said James, in high dudgeon. "Our parson shall have his way, and you shall have yours; but neither I nor any of the band, I've a notion, will have a hand in it. If we mayn't choose our tunes, and be left to our own discretion, as we always were before parson Osborne came, why, we'll take ourselves off at once, and give no more trouble. Only I should just like to hear what sort of a hand they'll make of it, that's all."

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Why, bad enough, no doubt," said Favell ; "but why should you take yourself off, James? If all were to be of one mind and take pains, there might be good singing, and singing too that a child might join in."

"It may be so,” said James; "but I'm too old to learn, and I don't see here, too, who's to be my master. But good evening to you, Master Favell; for there goes Joe Grindall, and I must have a word

with him.'

There was one who had listened very attentively to this conversation, turning from one to the other speaker with the greatest apparent interest. Poor Maurice! no one who first looked on his large blue eyes could guess that what shewed so bright and clear were dark and useless to him. Early in childhood he had had an illness which took away his sight without affecting the appearance of the eyes otherwise than by the loss of that expression