contrivance, that they can be separated and united, when required, for the purpose of cleaning, or otherwise. The flowers composing the bouquet are modelled from nature, and represent the rose, anemone, carnation, lily, &e. It contains nearly six thousand diamonds, the largest of which weighs upwards of ten carats, or forty grains; but some of the smallest are not more than the thousandth part of a carat in weight. Near to this were several brooches and bracelets in enamelled gold, set with brilliants; a portrait of the Queen in gold, set as a bracelet in diamonds and carbuncles; some ear-rings in diamonds, emeralds, and carbuncles-the style being suggested by the Nineveh monuments; and a splendid head-ornament in brilliants. J. V. Morel & Co. displayed what to our minds was the most splendid piece of jewellery in the Exhibition, and certainly one of the best specimens of English setting. (See engraving on the preceding page). It is described in the Catalogue (Class 23, No. 117) as a bouquet, but should have been styled a stomacher, being of a much more appropriate design; be this as it may, it is well known as "Morel's bouquet of diamonds and rubies." The setting is so contrived with springs, that the least motion causes the various sprigs to tremble, or oscillate, and thus display the brilliancy of the gems to the best advantage. It is constructed in such a manner that it can be separated into several distinct pieces, each one forming an elegant ornament. The diamonds are all of the finest water; and the rubies, which are well selected, and remarkably fine, are considered to be an almost unique collection, several years having been spent in obtaining them. The group consists of a convolvulus, a carnation, and roses; the rose-buds being formed of very large rubies. The whole is valued at £15,000.

Our limits, and not our inclination, compel us to omit noticing several excellent specimens of English jewellery, particularly brooches and bracelets.

A LITTLE neglect may breed great mischief:-for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy; all for want of care about a horse-shoe-nail.

HUNTING HENS' NESTS.

THERE was no task so pleasant to me, while I lived on a farm, as hunting hens' nests. Feeding the chickens, and taking care of the cosset lambs, gave me as much pleasure, but not quite, I think. There was something exciting about the business of exploring the barn, the wood house, and the entire premises, in fact, and being rewarded, after a noisy outburst of cackling, by a whole hatful of eggs,

In these explorations, I was generally attended by my brother, a little younger than myself, who relished the sport quite as much as I did myself. There is a story of rather a tragic nature connected with one of these hunting excursions, which I have a mind to tell you. There is a little bit of wisdom wrapped up in the tale, which, when the tale is unfolded, I hope you will find and profit by. I say I hope you will profit by it; for, after all, what is wisdom worth, even if you should get your head as full of it as Solomon's was, if you do not make some use of it? Not much, I am sure. Dogs and cats, rats and mice, squirrels and rabbits, geese and ducks-all these animals, though they do not get hold of so much knowledge as we have, generally use what little knowledge they do get. They make the most of it. When they have learned a good lesson, they remember it. It is not necessary, in most cases, to keep teaching the same lesson, over and over again, to the same dog, for instance, after he has once got it by heart. Even the goose, whom we are in the habit of calling a very stupid creature, when she has learned a lesson, generally keeps it in mind and practises it. I knew of a whole flock of geese once, who got as drunk as fools, eating cherries that had been soaked in rum; but nobody could ever make a single goose in that flock eat such things after that. They had been drunk once: that was sufficient for them. What a pity that all the members of the human family did not profit by what they learn, as these geese did by their knowledge.

But I am getting off on this "wild-goose chase" too far, and I must come straight back to the story.

The interior of our barn-and I am not sure but that the same could be said of all

the barns in our neighbourhood-had on each side of the wide open space, called the "barn floor," two high beams, running horizontally the whole length of the building. These beams were some twenty feet, perhaps, from the floor. When the hay was all in, the mows on each side of the barn floor reached as high as these great beams, though as the hay was generally taken away during the winter, of course the distance from the hay-mow to the beams increased. In the middle of the winter, I recollect, it always seemed a great feat to jump from the high beam to the mow, as Peter, my father's hired man, used sometimes to do for the amusement, he said, of the "little shavers." Some loose pieces of timber were placed on the high beams in the fall of the year, reaching across the barn floor from one beam to the other. These timbers formed a temporary scaffold, on which they placed bundles of rye and oats before they were thrashed.

You will readily see that this scaffold was not a safe place for boys. Besides the danger of sliding off, there was also danger that the timbers would spread apart, so as to let a person through. We boys were cautioned again and again of the danger of that scaffold, and forbidden to go there on any account whatever.

While hunting for hens' nests in the barn, it used, nevertheless, to seem a great pity to me that we could not pursue our researches on that forbidden ground! "What a host of eggs there must be on the scaffold!" I thought.

One day, when we were not so successful in our hunting excursion as usual, a very meagre collection of eggs having resulted from a search of a couple of hours, my thoughts were drawn so strongly toward the scaffold, that I could hardly turn them in any other direction.

"I wonder how many eggs there are on the scaffold?" I inquired of my brother. "I guess about a hatful," was the

answer.

"A hatful?" I exclaimed; "pooh! more likely half a bushel"-I was rather a sanguine boy.

"But there's no use in talking about the scaffold," my brother said. "We couldn't go there, you know, if the whole scaffold was covered with eggs."

I thought otherwise. "I don't believe

the folks know what lots of eggs there are among those bundles of rye," I said.

"But," said my brother, "I shouldn't wonder if they knew one thing about that scaffold better than we do."

I

"What's that?" I asked.

"They know that it is rather a dangerous place," was the reply.

"But Peter goes there," said I. "Peter is a man," said my brother. At that remark, I remember, I laughed. laughed to think that Peter could perform any feat in the way of climbing, which I dared not attempt. Boys have often great confidence in themselves. As they grow older, and gradually draw near the period of their manhood, they are apt to think less and less of themselves. My confidence in myself, on this occasion, was not courage. It was not heroism. It was nothing of the kind. It was something for which I deserved a great deal more censure than praise.

I finally reasoned my brother into the conclusion, that, on the whole, it was best to climb up to the scaffold; or, rather, I talked to him till he had used up all his arguments, for I hardly think he was altogether convinced that I was right. We arranged everything in our own minds, so that our parents would never know that we had climbed the scaffold. They would wonder, we knew, where we got such a large quantity of eggs. But we were going to deal out our information as physicians of a certain school deal out their medicines to their patients-in very small doses. That matter was all arranged.

The next step was to mount the ladder. It was thought best, by all means, to take up two hats. One hat, we thought, would be hardly sufficient to hold all the eggs. So up I started, holding on tight to the rounds of the ladder with both hands, and as tight to the brims of both hats with my teeth.

In spite of myself, somehow or other, I felt my courage oozing out of my fingers and toes, as I went up the ladder. I trembled a little, at first; but I went on. I had no notion of being scared out of an expedition which promised a peck of hens' eggs, at the least, and possibly half a bushel.

Yes, I went on! But when I got to the top of the ladder, which rested on the great

beam, I began to think that our Peter was a brave fellow, and that the feat I had undertaken was probably the greatest on record. I hesitated, and then climbed, as boldly as I could in the circumstances, upon the great beam, from which I stepped to the scaffold.

I looked down. Oh, how high that scaf fold seemed! What a distance to the barn floor! From the moment my eye fell upon the place where my brother was standing, fear took the entire control of me, and knocked every other thought and idea out of my head. The hats-so I was told afterwards, though I could not have been sensible of it at the time-fell to the floor at the moment that I turned to look downward.

My memory of what took place after I stepped upon the scaffold is very confused and misty. I remember looking down. I remember, too, that I felt sick; that everything began to go round and round, and that I went round and round with everything; that sometimes I was on the floor, sometimes on the mow, sometimes on the scaffold, and sometimes among the wasps' nests, where the rafters came together: that I wondered how the barn came to tumble over, and how it came to stand up again, and how the bundles of rye could stay on the scaffold, and why I could stay on myself-and

It was very hazy after that, very hazy indeed.

The next thing I remember now, the next thing I remembered then, was, that I was lying on a bed, and a strange-looking man, with a strange-looking penknife, was sitting close to me and pinching my wrist. I don't know exactly how a cat in a strange garret feels. I don't know that anybody knows, though it is a very common thing to hear people talk about feeling "as queer as a cat in a strange garret." I don't pretend to determine the precise nature of the sensations that fill Puss's bosom, when she suddenly finds herself in an upper apartment where she has never been before. But I can say, and I will say, that if she is any more bewildered at such a time than I was when I saw Doctor Windman-for it turned out that it was the doctor-sitting there with his lancet in one hand, and my wrist in the other-if she is any more bewildered than I was, I pity her.

And my head ached, too. How happened that? And my arm was lame. What did that mean? Had I hurt it? I tried to turn over in the bed. I couldn't do anything of the kind. I seemed to have been put into a barrel and pounded, as Amanda Lounsbury pounded the clothes, in the process of washing. What did all this mean?

I found out what it all meant-not immediately, but after a while. I found out that I had fallen from the scaffold down to the floor; that I was badly hurt by the fall; that my brother had alarmed the folks in the house; that they had carried me into the kitchen, and made up a bed for me there; that Dr. Windman had been sent for; that he had come and bled me; that everybody was alarmed; that the doctor had not said much, but that he looked as if he was a good deal worried about me— alas! I knew that, for I had seen that look— and he had shaken his head when my father asked him how badly I was hurt; that Peter had gone for another doctor; and, in short, that I was likely to have a pretty severe time of it.

I leave you to judge how I felt when I learned all this. The pain in my head and limbs was not all the pain that I sufferedno, not by a good deal. There was something in my breast which seemed to say, "This is what you get by disobedience. You deserve it all, and more." Oh, how that thought tortured me.

It was a long time, I do not remember how long, but it seemed an age-and I believe it was some two or three monthsbefore I could walk in the garden; and for some time after that I had to hobble about, like an old horse who has got the spring halt.

From the day of that unfortunate fall, until I became almost as large as Peter, the territory in which I hunted for hens' nest, never embraced the high scaffold.

HE who can wait for what he desires, takes the course not to be exceedingly grieved if he fails of it. He, on the contrary, who labours after a thing too impatiently, thinks the success, when it comes, is not a recompense equal to all the pains he has been at about it.