the oxygen to mingle with the fresh air, and be inhaled by your lungs once more.

17. Thus you feed the plants, and the plants feed you, while the great life-giving sun feeds both and the geranium standing in the sick child's window not merely rejoices his eye and mind by its beauty and freshness, but honestly repays the trouble spent on it; absorbing the breath which the child needs not, and giving to him the breath which he needs.

HEADS FOR COMPOSITION.

Write a composition by answering the following questions:1. Do we breathe two different breaths every time we breathe? 2. How may this be shown in the case of a sleeping child? How from the sensations we feel in a close, crowded room?

3. What is the difference between the breath we take in and that we give out?

4. What are the two principal gases in air?

5. What gas, of which there is a small portion in pure air, is found in excess in foul air?

6. Which "breath" do the fire and lights use up?

7. What gas, harmful to us, goes to feed plants?

"The Cruise of the Dolphin" is an extract from one of the best boys' books ever written "The Story of a Bad Boy," by Thomas Bailey Aldrich (born at Portsmouth, N.H., in 1836). Mr. Aldrich is known as a writer of sketches in a very crisp and clever style, and also takes high rank as a poet. Portsmouth (N.H.) is the point from which the four partners started on "the cruise of the Dolphin."

(2) flood-tide: the high tide about to fall or ebb.— (5) throw a wet blanket over: cool the ardor of, throw cold water on.

PART I.

1. It was a proud moment when I stood on the wharf, with my three partners, inspecting the Dolphin, moored at the foot of a very slippery flight of steps. She was painted white, with a green stripe outside; and on the stern a yellow dolphin, with its scarlet mouth wide open, stared with a surprised expression at its own reflection in the water. The boat was a great bargain.

2. Not long after the purchase of the boat, we planned an excursion to Sandpeep Island, the last of the islands in the harbor. We proposed to start early in the morning, and return with the tide in the moon

light. We were up before sunrise the next morning, in order to take advantage of the flood-tide, which Our preparations for the cruise

waits for no man.

were made the previous evening.

3. In the way of eatables and drinkables, we had stored in the stern of the Dolphin a generous bag of hardtack (for the chowder), a piece of pork, three gigantic apple-pies, half a dozen lemons, and a keg of spring-water. The last-named article we slung over the side to keep it cool, as soon as we got under way.

4. The crockery, and the bricks for our camp-stove, we placed in the bow; with the groceries, which included sugar, pepper, salt, and a bottle of pickles. Phil Adams contributed to the outfit a small tent of unbleached cotton cloth, under which we intended to take our nooning.

5. Charley Madden, whose father had promised to cane him if he ever stepped foot on sail or row boat, came down to the wharf, in a sour-grape humor, to see us off. Nothing would tempt him to go out on the river in such a crazy clam-shell of a boat. He pretended that he did not expect to behold us alive again, and tried to throw a wet blanket over the expedition.

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6. Guess you'll have a squally time of it," said Charley, casting off the painter.

"Bosh!" muttered Phil Adams, sticking the boathook into the string-piece of the wharf, and sending the Dolphin half a dozen yards towards the current.

7. How calm and lovely the river was! Not a ripple stirred on the glassy surface, broken only by the sharp cutwater of our tiny craft. The sun, as round and red as an August moon, was by this time peering above the water-line. The town had drifted behind us, and we were entering among the group of islands. Sometimes we could almost touch with our boat-hook the shelving banks on either side.

8. As we neared the mouth of the harbor, a little breeze now and then wrinkled the blue water, shook the spangles from the foliage, and gently lifted the spiral mist-wreaths that still clung along-shore. The measured dip of our oars, and the drowsy twitterings of the birds, seemed to mingle with, rather than break, the enchanted silence that reigned about us. The scent of the new clover comes back to me now, as I recall that delicious morning when we floated away in a fairy-boat down a river, like a dream.

9. The sun was well up when the nose of the Dolphin nestled against the snow-white bosom of Sandpeep Island. This island was the last of the cluster, one side of it being washed by the sea.

10. It took us an hour or two to transport our stores to the spot selected for the encampment. Having pitched our tent, using the five oars to support the canvas, we got out our lines, and went down the rocks seaward to fish.

11. It was early for cunners, but we were lucky enough to catch as nice a mess as ever you saw. A

cod for the chowder was not so easily secured. At last Binny Wallace hauled in a plump little fellow, crusted all over with flaky silver.

12. To skin the fish, build our fireplace, and cook the chowder, kept us busy the next two hours. The fresh air and the exercise had given us the appetites of wolves, and we were about famished by the time the savory mixture was ready for our clam-shell saucers. How happy we were, we four, sitting cross-legged in the crisp salt grass, with the invigorating sea-breeze blowing gratefully through our hair! What a joyous thing was life, and how far off seemed death,- death, that lurks in all pleasant places, and was so near!

LANGUAGE STUDY.

I. Write the analysis of: excursion (currere); current (currere); expect (specere); inspect (specere); transport (portare); support (portare). Supply other words for those in Italics: "inspecting the Dolphin

(1); stared with a surprised expression at its own reflection" (1); "a generous bag of hard-tack" (3); “three gigantic apple-pies" (3); “in a sourgrape humor" (5); “the measured dip of our oars (8); we were about famished by the time the savory mixture was ready" (12).

II. In paragraph 1 are a simple, a complex, and a compound sentence. Select each.

Analyze the sentence: "What a joyous thing was life, and how far off seemed death,—death, that lurks in all pleasant places, and was so near!"

III. This piece is an excellent example of the NARRATIVE style of composition. Examine the sentences, and see if they are long and involved, or short and direct in construction. Are the words those that belong to the ordinary vocabulary? Is the style easy and pleasing? What at the close of the piece leads us to anticipate a sad ending of the cruise?