A little girl, with a happy look,
Sat slowly reading a ponderous book,
All bound with velvet and edged with gold,
And its weight was more than the child could hold;
Yet dearly she loved to ponder it o’er,
And every day she prized it more;
For it said, and she looked at her smiling mother,—­
It said, “Little children, love one another.”

She thought it was beautiful in the book,
And the lesson home to her heart she took;
She walked on her way with a trusting grace,
And a dove-like look in her meek young face;
Which said, just as plain as words could say,
“The Holy Bible I must obey: 
So, mamma, I’ll be kind to my darling brother;
For ‘little children must love each other.’

I’m sorry he’s naughty, and will not play;
But I’ll love him still, for I think the way
To make him gentle and kind to me
Will be better shown if I let him see
I strive to do what I think is right;
And thus, when I kneel in prayer to-night,
I will clasp my hands around my brother,
And say, ‘Little children, love one another.’”

The little girl did as her Bible taught,
And pleasant indeed was the change it wrought;
For the boy looked up in glad surprise,
To meet the light of her loving eyes: 
His heart was full,—­he could not speak;
But he pressed a kiss on his sister’s cheek;
And God looked down on that happy mother
Whose “little children loved each other.”

—­Bath Paper.

* * * * *

The two next pieces ought to go together.  They resemble each other, not only in their subjects, but in their beauty also.  I hardly know which is the most interesting.

THE SISTER’S GRAVE.

At Smyrna, the burial-ground of the Americans, like that of the Moslems, is removed a short distance from the town, is sprinkled with green trees, and is a favorite resort not only with the bereaved, but with those whose feelings are not thus darkly overcast.  I met there one morning a little girl with a half-playful countenance, busy blue eye, and sunny locks, bearing in one hand a small cup of china, and in the other a wreath of fresh flowers.  Feeling a very natural curiosity to know what she could do with these bright things, in a place that seemed to partake so much of sadness, I watched her light motions.  Reaching a retired grave, covered with a plain marble slab, she emptied the seed, which it appeared the cup contained, into the slight cavities which had been scooped out in the corners of the level tablet, and laid the wreath on its pure face.  “And why,” I inquired, “my sweet child, do you put the seed in those little bowls there?” “It is to bring the birds here,” she replied with a half-wondering look:  “they will light on this tree,” pointing to the cypress above, “when they have eaten the seed, and sing.”  “To whom do they sing?” I asked:  “to you or