the dish of fat that will run out of it will give goose-butter for my bread for a quarter of a year. Then there are the nice white feathers; I shall get a pillow stuffed with them, and shall fall asleep on it without rocking. will be !"

How glad my mother

As he came through the last village, a knifegrinder was standing with his wheel, and sang at his whirring work—

mind."

"I sharpen the blades and I whirr like the wind, And whatever will pay best is most to my Hans stood still and looked at him. At last he spoke: "You must be doing well to sing so at your work." "Yes," answered the knife-grinder; "a good trade is a mine of gold. A clever grinder is a man who finds money in his pocket as often as he puts his hand there. But where did you buy that fine goose?" "I didn't buy it, but got it in exchange for my pig." "And the pig?" "I got that for a cow." "And the cow?" "I got that for a horse." "And the horse ?" "I gave a lump of gold for it as big as my head." "And the gold ?" "Eh, that was my pay for seven years' work." "You knew how to do yourself a good turn each time," said the grinder. "Now if you could only manage to have it so that you could hear gold clinking in your pocket whenever you put your hand into it, you will have made your fortune." "How can I do that?" asked Hans. "You must be a knife-grinder, like me. You need nothing but a whetstone; all the rest they bring you. Here, you see, I have a whetstone only a

little the worse. I'll give it you for very little; I'll take your goose for it, if you like. Will you have it!" "How could you ask such a thing?" said Hans. "I shall be the happiest man in the world. If I had money in my pocket whenever I liked to use it, I could have nothing to care for." So he gave him the goose for the whetstone. "Now," said the grinder, as he lifted up a common heavy stone from the road near him, "here's a firstrate lapstone besides. You may hammer on that as hard as you like, and straighten your old nails. Take it, and use it along with the whetstone."

Hans took the whetstone and the lapstone, and went off with contented heart. His eyes shone for joy. "I must have been born lucky," he cried out; "all that I wish comes to me, as if I had been born on a Sunday!" Meanwhile, as he had been on his legs since daybreak, he began to get tired: hunger pinched him as well, as he had eaten all his provision at once, for joy at getting the cow. At last he could hardly get along, and had to stop every minute, and the stones grew heavier each step. The thought crept on him, how much better it would be if he had nothing to carry. He came at last, like a snail, to the side of a brook, and there he thought he would rest, and have a good drink, but that he might not do the stones any harm in his kneeling down, he laid them carefully beside him, on the edge of the brook. He now turned and was about to bend down, but he missed his foot a little-stumbled, and down went both stones, plump, into deep water. Hans, when he had seen them sink, sprang up for

joy, and cried out, with tears in his eyes, that he had had good fortune this time, above all, to get quit of his stones so nicely, for getting well quit of them was the only thing that was wanting now to his luck. "There is no man so lucky as I under the sun," said he. With light heart, and free from all burden, he now sprang forward till he got to his mother's cottage.

I hope you will take the lesson from him, not to be so silly as get tired of everything so easily; not to be so changeable; and not to be so simple as to take every one's word about bargains they offer you, without thinking well over them in your own head, and using good common sense as you do so.

QUESTIONS.-For what did Hans give away the pig? What had the fellow with him who next met him? What did he say about the pig? What did Hans do? What did he say to himself at out the goose? What came of the goose? What came of the stores? What lessons should you learn from Hans?

rap.
wrap.
sea.

see.

sum.
some.
strait.

ELLIPTICAL LESSONS.

Be good enough to

bring it when I

up this cloak, and at the door for you.

The bishop's is in Africa; I should like
it, but it is far away over the

to

He gave a great

has long wanted

The ship sailed in a

through a narrow

for these things, but he

of them.

course for her port, between the islands. trap to catch the fox his chickens.

straight.

steel.

The farmer set a

The Queen's robes were

horse has no right

over the

RIDDLE.

What shoemaker makes shoes without leather?

BEHOLD a little baby boy,

• A happy babe is he;

His face how bright,

His heart how light,

His throne his mother's knee.

His lips are red, his teeth are pearls ; The rogue, he has but two;

His golden hair

How soft and fair,

His eyes how bright and blue!

His tiny hands are white and plump;

And, waking or asleep,

Beneath his clothes

His little toes,

How cunningly they peep.

LESSONS ON SPECIFIC SUBJECTS.*

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.

1. THE SHAPE OF THE EARTH.

:

1. In old times, men thought the earth was a great flat plain, and children still think it is flat till they are taught its true shape. It is not a flat surface, however, but round, like a ball or an orange. 2. This may be proved in many ways. For example :(1). If you stand on the ground, the houses and trees four or five miles off cannot be seen; but if you climb a hill, they rise again into sight, and the higher you mount, the wider becomes your view. In the same way, if you look at ships sailing out to sea from the shore, they soon sink out of sight; but if you climb to the top of a cliff, and look again, the same ships are once more seen, and you can watch till they sink a second time behind the waters. The reason why our range of view thus widens the higher we stand, is that the higher the point from which we look, the further we see over the round shape of the earth. People who go up in a balloon soon after sunset see the sun once more, from the same cause, as they rise, though it is out of sight on the earth.

(2). If you watch a ship approaching you over the sea, you will notice that only the tops of the masts are seen at first; that then, as it comes nearer, the sails rise as if out of the water, and that the ship itself comes into sight last of all, because it is lowest. So, when a ship is sailing away from you, the hull disappears first,` then the sails, and at last the tops of the masts. This can only be because the sea, though it seems flat, is really arched so as to be part of the great circle of the earth's shape.

(3). Any one who has ever seen an eclipse of the moon, can see that the shadow of the earth, which causes the eclipse, is round, and only a round body can throw a round shadow. An eclipse of the moon is caused by the earth passing between the moon and the sun, so that the shadow of the earth's form is cast on the moon, as the shadow of an orange would be cast on the wall if we held one between the wall and a burning lamp or candle.

(4). The ships that make voyages round the world show that it is like a ball or an orange, for they sail as nearly as possible

* The subjects of these Lessons are those appointed by Government for the Fourth Standard. They should be used as READING LESSONS, and also studied section by section.