and the slaughter is immediate and widespread. When I got this hoe, I was troubled with sleepless mornings, pains in the back, kleptomania with regard to new weeders; when I went into my garden, I was always sure to see something. In this disordered state of mind and body I got this hoe. The morning after a day of using it I slept perfectly and late. I regained my respect for the eighth commandment. After two doses of the hoe in the garden the weeds entirely disappeared. Trying it a third morning, I was obliged to throw it over the fence, in order to save from destruction the green things that ought to grow in the garden. Of course this is figurative language. What I mean is, that the fascination of using this hoe is such that you are sorely tempted to employ it upon your vegetables after the weeds are laid low and must hastily withdraw it to avoid unpleasant results. make this explanation because I intend to put nothing into these agricultural papers that will not bear the strictest scientific investigation; nothing that the youngest child cannot understand and cry for; nothing that the oldest and wisest men will not need to study with care.

I need not add, that the care of a garden with this hoe becomes the merest pastime. I would not be without one for a single night. The only danger is, that you may rather make an idol of the hoe, and somewhat neglect your garden in explaining it, and fooling about with it. I almost think that, with one of these in the hands of an ordinary daylabourer, you might see at night where he had been working.

Let us have peas. I have been a zealous advocate of the birds. I have rejoiced in their multiplication. I have endured their concerts at four o'clock in the morning without a murmur. Let them come, I said, and eat the worms, in order that we, later, may enjoy the foliage and the fruits of the earth. We have a cat, a magnificent

animal, of the sex which votes (but not a pole-cat),—so large and powerful that, if he were in the army, he would be called Long Tom. He is a cat of fine disposition, the most irreproachable morals I ever saw thrown away in a cat, and a splendid hunter. He spends his nights, not in social dissipation, but in gathering in rats, mice, flyingsquirrels, and also birds. When he first brought me a bird, I told him that it was wrong, and tried to convince him, while he was eating it, that he was doing wrong; for he is a reasonable cat, and understands pretty much everything except the binomial theorem and the time down the cycloidal arc. But with no effect. The killing of birds went on to my great regret and shame.

The other day I went to my garden to get a mess of peas. I had seen, the day before, that they were just ready to pick. How I had lined the ground, planted, hoed, bushed them! The bushes were very fine-seven feet high, and of good wood. How I had delighted in the growing, the blowing, the podding! What a touching thought it was that they had all podded for me! When I went to pick them, I found the pods all split open, and the peas gone. The dear little birds, who are so fond of the strawberries, had eaten them all. Perhaps there were left as many as I planted: I did not count them. I made a rapid estimate of the cost of the seed, the interest of the ground, the price of labour, the value of the bushes, the anxiety of weeks of watchfulness. I looked about me on the face of Nature. The wind blew from the south so soft and treacherous! A thrush sang in the woods so deceitfully! All Nature seemed fair. But who was to give me back my peas? The fowls of the air have peas; but what has man?

I went into the house. I called Calvin (that is the name of our cat, given him on account of his gravity, morality, and uprightness. We never familiarly call him.

John). I petted Calvin. I lavished upon him an enthusiastic fondness. I told him that he had no fault; that the one action that I had called a vice was an heroic exhibition of regard for my interests. I bade him go and do likewise continually. I now saw how much better instinct is than mere unguided reason. Calvin knew. If he had put his opinion into English (instead of his native catalogue), it would have been: "You need not teach your grandmother to suck eggs." It was only the round of Nature. The worms eat a noxious something in the ground. The birds eat the worms. Calvin eats the birds. We eat-no, we do not eat Calvin. When you ascend the scale of being, and come to an animal that is, like ourselves, inedible, you have arrived at a result where you can rest. Let us respect the cat, he completes an edible

chain.

There the chain stops.

I have little heart to discuss methods of raising peas. It occurs to me that I can have an iron pea-bush, a sort of trellis, through which I could discharge electricity at frequent intervals, and electrify the birds to death when they alight; for they stand upon my beautiful bush, in order to pick out the peas. An apparatus of this kind, with an operator, would cost, however, about as much as the peas. A neighbour suggests that I might put up a scarecrow near the vines, which would keep the birds away. I am doubtful about it: the birds are too much accustomed to seeing a person in poor clothes in the garden to care much for that. Another neighbour suggests that the birds do not open the pods; that a sort of blast, apt to come after rain, splits the pods, and the birds then eat the peas. It may be SO. There seems to be complete unity of action between the blast and the birds. But good neighbours, kind friends, I desire that you will not increase, by talk, a disappointment which you cannot assuage.

Charles Dudley Warner.

THE QUAKER COQUETTE.

EAR coy coquette, but once we met

DE

But once, and yet 'twas once too often, Plunged unawares in silvery snares,

All vain my prayers her heart to soften ; Yet seems so true her eyes of blue,

Veined lids and longest lashes under, Good angels dwelt therein, I felt,

And could have knelt in reverent wonder.

Poor heart, alas! what eye could pass
The auburn mass of curls caressing
Her
pure white brow, made regal now
By this simplicity of dressing.
Lips dewy, red as Cupid's bed

Of rose-leaves shed on Mount Hymettus, With balm imbued they might be wooed, But ah! coy prude, she will not let us.

No jewels deck her radiant neck—
What pearl could reck its hue to rival?
A pin of gold-the fashion old-

A ribbon-fold, or some such trifle;
And-beauty chief! the lily's leaf

In dark relief sets off the whiteness
Of all the breast not veiled and pressed
Beneath her collar's Quaker tightness.

And milk-white robes o'er snowier globes
As Roman maids are drawn by Gibbon,
With classic taste are gently braced

Around her waist beneath a ribbon;