three, thousand dollar notes-here are five hundreds, and here

"Well, well, my darling," said the gentleman, with a chuckle of self-approbation, and a glance around upon the company, which spoke volumes of satisfied pride, "here's a hundred; go, get your jewels as early in the morning as you please, and give me a kiss now worth a hundred dollars."

I thought of poor Ellen in her quiet grave, and her husband mouldering on the shores of a foreign land; but I said nothing; for I knew no eloquence would have moved pity for the poor orphan boy, thus cast upon the rough current of this strange and incomprehensible world.

FABLES.

THE TRANSPLANTED ROSE.

In a beautiful recess, formed by the interwreathed branches of a thick wood, there once grew together a company of flowers. Although they were of several kinds, they lived in great friendship with each other, and, as they had burst forth in their sylvan retreat in the early spring, they were promised by the aged trees around, a long and most happy existence. Nothing could be more delightful than the summer days and nights which they spent in each other's society. There was no envy, no jealousy, no pride-those dreadful plagues of the fair flowers of the human race-and they were luckily ignorant of any degrading luxury and wasting dissipation to sap their young strength, steal the fine hues from their fresh and tender leaves, or to bend them out of that exquisite ease and graceful simplicity which they inherited from nature. The loveliest belle, while she envied their wonderful beauty, might have more justly envied their quiet repose and cheerfulness. The breeze came to them with an equal love,

and stirred them gently; the dew fell silently from heaven, and freshened their opening bloom; the sun kissed them and ripened every charming feature, and the golden bee hummed around them in the mellow afternoons; and when the wind and storm arose they remained sheltered by the strong arms of a giant vine, which they had long cheered with their radiant glances, and which, in return, bent over, and guarded them to the full extent of his power.

There is a glory about flowers which always touches me. They are types of girlish innocence. Every one who looks at them feels that, if they have any consciousness, they must be happy. They bear upon them such an unequivocal impress of supernatural care and love. They are so clearly nature's pride-her favorites; the freshest-the sweetest-the most perfect of her creations. Who that knows the world-its dark and awful tempests-its gloomy calms-its fierceness-its hatreds-its anguish its disease,-who would not be a flower-ignorant of these things, to open and breathe a grateful joy and pass silently away under the glory of a summer sky?

One day there came a lord, and he paused as he gazed on them. He admired all, but most he admired a tall and superb rose, that spread out its half uncurling leaves with the simple delight of health and youth.

"I will have that flower," he said, "for myself. It shall be forthwith transplanted. It will be the surprise and delight of the great and the lovely. It will excel every other." And so he went away for his gardener.

The tall rose had listened with new feelings.Strange thoughts of tremulous pleasure thronged upon her. She nodded her beauteous head and rejoiced.

"Dear rose," said a little blue violet that peeped out beneath, "you had better be where you are, in my mind. I never knew any good to come from transplanting such tender creatures as you from their natural homes."

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Saucy and dull violet," replied the queen of all the flowers, "thou mayest remain, but I am inspired with a new existence. I wonder I never before knew what it was to be admired, or how much I excelled all of you. It is a delicious sensation-I am now the happiest of flowers."

She was interrupted by the gardener, who dug away the earth around her, and carried her to the palace of

his master.

For a few hours she was intoxicated with delight. Every body praised her. She wondered that she had been so long ignorant of her merits, and how gratifying it is to be praised; but in a little time she was neglected her color faded-her fresh leaves grew dry and withered—she hung her head-all her charms disappeared. The lord took her and cast her into the road, and, as she was leaving her brief residence she met the gardener with another rose all dripping with dew, and blushing with pleasure.

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"Alas," she said, as she was dying, "alas, for my sweet and simple home. May all lovely flowers take warning by me, and shrink from the hand that would drag them from their happy seclusion to exhibit their beauties in the glare of public notice, and leave them, like me, afterward to perish unpitied."

HUMILITY AND PERSEVERANCE.

FROM the side of a mountain there flowed forth a little rivulet-its voice was scarcely heard amid the rustling of the leaves and grass around, and its shallow and narrow stream might be overlooked by the traveller. This brook, although so small, was inspired with a proud spirit, and murmured against the decree of Providence, which had cast its lot so lowly.

"I wish I were a cloud, to roll all day through the heavens, painted as those lovely shapes are, and never descending again in showers; or, at least, I wish I were a broad river, performing some useful duty in the world. Shame on my weak waves and unregarded bubbling. I might as well have never been, as to be thus puny, insignificant, and useless."

When the brook had thus complained, a beautiful tall flower, that bent over its bosom, replied,

"Thou art in error, brook. Puny and insignificant thou mayest be; useless thou art not, for I owe half my beauty, perhaps my life, to thy refreshing waters. "The plants adjacent to thee are greener and richer

than the others. The Creator has given thee a duty, which, though humble, thou must not neglect. Beside, who knows what may be thy future destiny? Flow on, I beseech thee."

The brook heard the rebuke, and danced along its way more cheerfully. On and on it went, growing broader and broader. By and by other rivulets poured their crystal waters into it, and swelled its deepening bosom, in which already began to appear the fairy creatures of the wave, darting about joyfully, and glistening in the sun. As its channel grew wider and wider, and yet other branches came gliding into it, the stream began to assume the importance of a river, and boats were launched on it, and it rolled on in a meandering course through a teeming country, freshening whatever it touched, and giving the whole scene a new character of beauty.

As it moved on now in majesty and pride the sound of its gently-heaving billows formed itself into the following words:

"At the outset of life, however humble we may seem, fate may have in store for us great and unexpected opportunities of doing good and of being great. In the hope of these we should ever pass on without despair or doubt, trusting that perseverance will bring in its own reward. How little I dreamed when I first sprang on my course what purposes I was destined to fulfill! What happy beings were to owe their bliss to me! What lofty trees, what velvet meadows, what golden harvests were to hail my career! Let not the meek and lowly despair: heaven will supply them with noble. inducements to virtue."

CONTENT AND PLEASURE.

THERE was a soft flower. It bloomed in the midst of a wood. Nothing could exceed its delicacy, its brightness, its grace, and loveliness. The surrounding air was laden with its breath. In its half closed leaves was a spell of such potency, that every other flower in its presence appeared dim. Its name was Pleasure.

Whoever passed by the beautiful acclivity where it VOL. II-12

grew, wanted to pluck it. Unfortunately, however, it was only to be found on a place of difficult access, and was surrounded with various kinds of briars and thorns. Still, however, it was the delight of every eye, and the wish of every heart.

On the road side, which wound along by the bank where Pleasure bloomed so brightly, there grew in some profusion a plant of an inferior kind; at least, so it appeared when any one looked on it, which happened very seldom; for it was so plain in its colors, so humble in its attitude, so lowly and unpresuming, that it was generally quite disregarded; or, if seen accidentally by those in pursuit of Pleasure, was trampled down as something worthless. Here and there might be found one passenger, who, after gazing a while on Pleasure, and on the violent exertions made by the crowd to procure it, shook his head, picked up the little floweret at his feet, kissed it, and put it in his bosom. The name of this plant was Content.

But however inferior it might be to Pleasure in beauty, it certainly had one advantage over its brilliant rival. The former was rarely to be found in any quantity. The road to it was most frequently troublesome and dangerous, and its buds too, were often also almost beyond the reach, and so singularly small and fragile that the very airs of summer blew off the downy blossoms, and wilted the delicate leaves. The latter, on the contrary, was a hardy plant, and burst up every where in a lavish abundance. The road was lined with it. Sometimes it shot forth with vigor even in the very path, peeping up from the hard trodden ground and between the stones scattered around. About the bases of rocks and the twisted roots of old trees it lay in masses, and away in under the shade of still summer places, where the traveller in his haste would scarcely ever dream of looking, it might be seen unfolding its cheerful buds, and pushing out fearlessly with a right fresh and merry aspect.

When storms arose, Pleasure always suffered. It shrunk up like a sensitive plant; and when the wind and rain passed away, the green bank was sure to be ⚫ scattered all over with fragments of blossoms and broken leaves. Poor Pleasure! If summer breezes disturbed