business, had staked the joint profits of their next piece of villainy on a game of cards, which was to have been decided here under the trees. But finding David asleep by the spring, one of the rogues whispered to his fellow,

2. "Hist! Do you see that bundle under his head?" The other villain nodded, winked, and leered.

"I warrant you," said the first, "that the chap has either a pocket-book, or a snug little hoard of small change, stowed away among his shirts. And if not there, we shall find it in his pantaloons-pocket.'

3. "But what if he wakes?" said the other.

His companion thrust aside his waistcoat, pointed to the handle of a dirk, and nodded.

"So be it," muttered the second villain.

4. They approached the unconscious David, and, while one pointed the dagger towards his heart, the other began to search the bundle beneath his head. Their two faces, grim, wrinkled, and ghastly with guilt and fear, bent over their victim, looking horrible enough to be mistaken for fiends, should he suddenly awake. Nay, had the villains glanced aside into the spring, even they would hardly have known themselves as reflected there. But David Swan had never worn a more tranquil aspect, even when asleep on his mother's breast.

5. “I must take away the bundle," whispered one.

"If he stirs I'll strike," muttered the other.

But at this moment a dog, scenting along the ground, came in beneath the maple trees, and gazed alternately at each of these wicked men, and then at the quiet sleeper. He then lapped out of the fountain.

6. "Pshaw!" said one villain. "We can do nothing now. The dog's master must be close behind."

"Let's be off," said the other.

7. The man with the dagger thrust back the weapon into his bosom, and they left the spot, with so many jests and such laughter at their unaccomplished wickedness, that they might be said to have gone on their way rejoicing.

8. In a few hours they had forgotten the whole affair, nor once imagined that the recording angel had written down the crime of murder against their souls, in letters as durable as eternity. As for David Swan, he still slept quietly, neither conscious of the shadow of death when it hung over him, nor of the glow of renewed life when that shadow was withdrawn.

9. He slept, but no longer so quietly as at first. An hour's repose had snatched, from his elastic frame, the weariness with which many hours of toil had burdened it. Now he stirred; now moved his lips, without a sound; now talked, in

an inward tone, to the noonday specters of his dream. But a noise of wheels came rattling louder and louder along the road, until it dashed through the dispersing mist of David's slumber-and there was a stage coach. He started up, with all his ideas about him.

10. "Halloo, driver! Take a passenger?" shouted he. "Room on top," answered the driver.

Up mounted David, and bowled away merrily toward Boston, without so much as a parting glance at that fountain of dream-like vicissitude.

11. He knew not that the phantom of Wealth had thrown a golden hue upon its waters, nor that one of Love had sighed softly to their murmur, nor that one of Death had threatened to crimson them with his blood-all, in the brief hour since he lay down to sleep. Sleeping or waking, we hear not the airy footsteps of the strange things that almost happen. Does it not argue a superintending Providence, that, while viewless and unexpected events thrust themselves continually athwart our path, there should still be regularity enough in mortal life, to render foresight even partially available?

LESSON III.

THE WELL OF ST. KEYNE.

BY ROBERT SOUTHEY.

Robert Southey, an elegant and voluminous English writer, was born in 1774. He was educated at Westminster School, and afterward spent two years at Oxford. He resided in the Lake district, the companion and friend of the poet Wordsworth. His private life was without a stain, and he devoted his time wholly to literature, bringing to his noble labors the richest cultivation of the intellect, and the most unparalleled industry. The principal poems of Southey are The Curse of Kehama, Thalaba, Madoc, Roderick the Last of the Goths, and The Vision of Judgment. His most popular prose works are, a Life of Lord Nelson and The Doctor, the latter a charming medley of essay, colloquy and criticism. He was appointed poet-laureate in 1813, and died in 1843.

A

WELL there is in the west country,

And a clearer one never was seen;
There's not a wife in the west country
But has heard of the well of St. Keyne.

2. A traveler came to the well of St Keyne;
Joyfully he drew nigh,

For from cock-crow he had been traveling,
And there was not a cloud in the sky.

3. He drank of the water, so cold and clear,
For thirsty and hot was he;

And he sat down upon the bank

Under the willow tree.

4. There came a man from the house hard by To the well to fill his pail;

On the well-side he rested it,

And he bade the stranger hail.

5. "Art thou a bachelor, stranger?" quoth he, For an' if thou hast a wife,

6.

The happiest draught thou hast drank this day
That ever thou didst in thy life.

Or has thy good woman, if one thou hast,
Ever here in Cornwall been?

For an' if she have, I'll venture my life

She has drank of the well of St. Keyne."

7. "I have a good woman who never was here,"
The stranger made reply;

"But why should she be the better for that,
I pray you, answer why?"

8. "St. Keyne," quoth the Cornish-man, "many a time Drank of this crystal well,

And before the angel summoned her,
She laid on the water a spell.

9. "If the husband of this gifted well
Shall drink before his wife,
A happy man henceforth is he,
For he shall be master for life.

10. "But if the wife should drink of it first,
God help the husband then."

The stranger stoop'd to the well of St. Keyne,
And drank of the water again.

11. "You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes?"
He to the Cornish-man said;

But the Cornish-man smiled as the stranger spoke,
And sheepishly shook his head.

12. "I hasten'd as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch;

But, i' faith, she had been wiser than me,
For she took a bottle to church."

LESSON IV.

WHO ARE DISTURBED BY REFORMS.

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the most brilliant and versatile of American writers, was born in Cambridge, Mass., August 29, 1809. He graduated at Harvard College in 1829. He received his degree of M. D. in 1836, after some years of study, both at home and in medical schools abroad. He was chosen Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Dartmouth College in 1838, and was called to the same chair in Harvard College in 1847. DR. HOLMES commenced writing poetry at an early age, and has produced some of the finest verse of the time. Upon the establishment of the Atlantic Monthly in 1857, he began a series of papers entitled The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. These papers at once became very popular, and each successive number added to the reputation of the author. The next year he published, in the same magazine, another similar series, entitled The Professor at the Breakfast Table. Elsie Venner, a novel, next appeared in 1861, and The Guardian Angel in 1867. Another series of papers, The Poet at the Breakfast Table, was published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1872, and subsequently issued in book form.

DTD

ID you never, in walking in the fields, come across a large flat stone, which had lain, nobody knows how long, just where you found it, with the grass forming a little hedge, as it were, all round it, close to its edges? and have you not, in obedience to a kind of feeling that told you it had been lying there long enough, insinuated your stick, or your foot, or your fingers, under its edge, and turned it over as a housewife turns a cake, when she says to herself, "It's done brown enough by this time "?

2. What an odd revelation, and what an unforeseen and unpleasant surprise to a small community, the very existence of