bilberry a small wild fruit of dark blue color.

succory: chicory, a plant with bright blue flowers. columbine a plant whose flower resembles the heads of doves gathered round a plate.

agrimony: an herb once greatly used in medicine.

catchfly: the popular name of a plant with glutinous stems which sometimes catch small insects.

adder's tongue: a fern, so called from the spike-like form of its flowers.

yellow-breeched: the bee's under body is yellow.

17. SEVEN TIMES TWO

JEAN INGELOW

By Jean Ingelow

JEAN INGELOW (1830-July 20, 1897), wrote both prose and verse, but is best remembered by her poems. A great part of her poetry is of a devotional type, sweet and simple and filled with beautiful thoughts. She had marked literary skill, and her English is strong and pure. Among her poems is "The High Tide off the Coast of Lincolnshire," in which she has related with great pathos a legend of her native place. The poems most closely associated with her name are "The Songs of Seven," a series of lyrics which picture seven stages in a woman's life. Our selection

shows the girl standing at the entrance to maidenhood, longing for the years to go faster to bring to her the happiness she imagines

is waiting.

THE

HE foxglove shoots out of the green matted heather,

And hangeth her hoods of snow;

She was idle, and slept till the sunshiny weather: Oh, children take long to grow!

I wish, and I wish that the spring would

go faster,

Nor long summer bide so late; And I could grow on like the foxglove and aster, For some things are ill to wait.

I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover, While dear hands are laid on my head:

"The child is a woman, the book may close over, For all the lessons are said."

I wait for my story the birds cannot sing it,
Not one as he sits on the tree ;

The bells cannot ring it, but long years, O bring it!
Such as I wish it to be!

You bells in the steeple, ring, ring out your changes, How many soever they be,

And let the brown meadow-lark's note as he ranges, Come over, come over to me.

Yet birds' sweetest carol by fall or by swelling

No magical sense conveys,

And the bells have forgotten their old art of telling The fortune of future days.

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FOURTH READER

"Turn again, turn again," once they rang cheerily,

While a boy listened alone,

Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily
All by himself on a stone.

Poor bells! I forgive you; your good days are over, And mine, they are yet to be;

No listening, no longing shall aught, aught discover, You leave the story to me.

hoods of snow: The flowers of the foxglove are bellshaped, often pure white in color, and hang down like hoods.

ill to wait hard to wait for.

"Turn again": The boy who listened to the bells was Dick Whittington, a poor orphan country lad, who went to London to get a living. When nearly starved, a merchant gave him employment in his family to help the cook; but the cook so ill-treated the boy that he ran away. Sitting down by the roadside to rest he heard the bells of Bow Church, which seemed to say, "Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London"; so he returned to his master's house. He actually rose to be thrice lord mayor of London. Notice that the lines in this stanza begin with an accent.

'TIS expectation makes a blessing dear;

Heaven were not heaven, if we knew

what it were.

SIR JOHN SUCKLING.

18. THE GARDEN OF PLEASURE

By Olive Schreiner

OLIVE SCHREINER CRONWRIGHT is the daughter of a Lutheran clergyman, and was born at Cape Town, Africa, about 1863. She has written one or two novels founded upon South African life, in which she describes very vividly the peculiar customs of the people known as the Boers. The book from which our selection is taken is called 66 Dreams," a collection of short tales in the form of allegory, in which the writer teaches many of the difficult lessons of life. What do you think is Mrs. Cronwright's purpose in "The Garden of Pleasure"?

SHE

OLIVE SCHREINER

HE walked upon the beds, and the sweet, rich scent arose; and she gathered her hands full of flowers. Then Duty, with his white, clear features, came and looked at her. Then she ceased from gathering, but walked away among the flowers, smiling and with her hands full.

Then Duty, with his still, white face, came again, and looked at her; but she turned her head away from him. At last she saw his face, and she dropped the fairest of the flowers she had held, and walked silently away.

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FOURTH READER

Then again he came to her. And she moaned and bent her head low and turned to the gate. But as she went out she looked back at the sunlight on the face of the flowers, and wept in anguish. Then she went out, and it shut behind her forever; but still in her hand she held of the buds she had gathered, and the scent was very sweet in the lonely desert.

But he followed her. Once more he stood before her with his still, white, and deathlike face. And she knew what he had come for; she unbent the fingers and let the flowers drop out, the flowers she had loved so, and walked on without them with dry, aching eyes. Then for the last time he came. And she showed him her empty hands, the hands that held nothing now. But still he looked. Then at length she opened her bosom and took out of it one small flower she had hidden there, and laid it on the sand. She had nothing more to give now, and she wandered away and the gray sand whirled about her.

I

DO my duty; other things trouble me not; for they are either things without life, or things without reason, or things that have rambled and know not the way.

MARCUS AURELIUS.