"Grandpa," said Joe suddenly, as they were moving into the pasture, "don't you think the wind has changed?"

"What?" said Grandpa eagerly. "The wind changed?"

They stopped and tested the currents drawing above them. Joe was right.

"The wind has changed! The wind has changed! they shouted to those behind, and so it went triumphantly along the line of exiles. From the top of the rocky hill they could see the flames curling away toward another quarter.

Eagerly they went back. Everything was safe, and Old Brindle, the cow, who had made her way home from her distant pasture, stood in the barn-door and "mooed " them a welcome home.

When Joe was an old man, with hair as white as Grandpa Wilton's, he sat by the farm-house hearth-stone, and told the children of the great fire in the woods, and how God swung the wind round to a safe quarter; and he thought grandpa's prayer had something to do with the swinging of the wind.

A CHINESE CITY OF THE DEAD.

A FUNERAL Overtook us, with mourners all dressed in white, bearing the dead in the massive wooden coffin which had probably been given him many years previously by his dutiful children, and which even now was not on its way to burial but to be laid in the City of the Dead, there to remain in its own hired house, rented at so much a month, perhaps for years, till the priests chose to announce that the auspicious moment for burial had at length arrived, when it might be laid in a horse-shoe shaped tomb on some bleak hillside.

I went a few days later to visit this City of the Dead, and an extraordinary place it is. Just outside the city walls lie a vast expanse of barren hills, all covered with the graves of nameless dead. You pass a small lake shaded by trees, where a multitude of white cranes roost; and, passing through a walled inclosure and the court of a small temple with gilded images, you enter the city, which is laid out just like a city of the living, in a labyrinth of streets of small houses, in each of which rests from one to three of these large wooden coffins, hidden by a screen, in front of which stands an altar with the usual altar vessels for flowers, lights, and incense. These for the dead are mostly of the coarsest green pottery. Large gaily-dressed figures, all

of paper, guard the four corners of the room, silk or paper lanterns hang from the roof, and some have very showy state umbrellas, all made of paper, gilt and coloured. Some have horses, others a complete apparatus for opium smcking, but all in paper. The dead are supposed to require many things in the far country, but they are easily satisfied. Houses, horses, boots, boxes, rolls of silk, large lumps of gold and silver money, are all acceptable, but they need only be made of paper and bamboo, and are offered as burnt sacrifices. The food offered is very real, figs roasted whole, and other delicacies, but, happily, the hungry dead only care to feast on the smell, the impalpable essence, and are content to let their descendants enjoy the substantial reality. The City of the Dead has what I may call suburbs of wretched outhouses, where poor neglected coffins are placed. Relatives, weary of paying house-rent, and waiting many years for the priests to declare the lucky moment for burial, have at last stopped payment. Then the coffins are removed to these sheds to await permission from the authorities for burial at some spot on the surrounding hills.-Gordon Cumming.

TEMPERANCE FABLE.

THE rats once assembled in a large cellar to devise some method of safety in getting the bait from the steel trap which lay near, having seen numbers of their friends and relatives snatched from them by its merciless jaws. After many long speeches, and proposals of many elaborate but fruitless plans, a happy wit, standing erect, said,

"It is my opinion that if with one paw we can keep down the spring, we can safely take the food from the trap with the other."

All the rats loudly squealed assent. Then they were startled by a faint voice, and a poor rat, with only three legs, limping into the ring, stood up to speak :

"My friends, I have tried the method you propose, and you see the result. Now let me suggest a plan to escape the trap: Let it alone."

LAURA'S DREAM.

LAURA had a dream one night that she never forgot. She was a very little girl, but she had a very big fault. What do you think it was? She told lies, sometimes, though mamma told her how wrong it was!

This was her dream: She thought she was all ready to go and live in heaven, and that when she went and knocked at the door no one

came to open it! She knocked again, and then it blessed Jesus looked out at her and said, very sadly, that loves lies cannot love Me, for I am the Truth." ing, and after that was careful to speak the truth.

DOLLY'S CHRISTENING.
"I'LL be the goodest little girl
That ever you did see,
If you'll let me take my dolly
To church with you and me.
It is too bad to leave her,

When we's all gone away;
Oh! Cosette will be so lonesome
To stay at home all day."

'Twas such a pleading pair of eyes,
And winsome little face,

That mamma couldn't well refuse,
Though church was not the place
For dolls or playthings, she well knew,
Still mamma's little maid

Was always so obedient,

She didn't feel afraid.

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opened, and the "A little child Laura woke cry

The minister smiled and bowed his head,

But mamma blushes yet!