Some little good—­not in the dreaming
    Of great things to do by-and-by.

  We cannot make bargains for blisses,
    Nor catch them, like fishes, in nets;

  And sometimes the thing our life misses
    Helps more than the good that it gets.

[Illustration:  “What I can’t tell mother, is not fit for me to know.”]

TELLING MOTHER

* * * * *

A group of young girls stood about the door of the schoolroom one afternoon, whispering together, when a little girl joined them, and asked what they were doing.

“I am telling the girls a secret, Kate, and we will let you know, if you will promise not to tell any one as long as you live,” was the reply.

“I won’t tell any one but my mother,” replied Kate.  “I tell her everything, for she is my best friend.”

“No, not even your mother, no one in the world.”

“Well, then I can’t hear it; for what I can’t tell mother, is not fit for me to know.”

After speaking these words, Kate walked away slowly, and perhaps sadly, yet with a quiet conscience, while her companions went on with their secret conversation.

I am sure that if Kate continued to act on that principle, she became a virtuous, useful woman.  No child of a Christian mother will be likely to take a sinful course, if Kate’s reply is taken for a rule of conduct.

As soon as a boy listens to conversations at school or on the playground, which he would fear or blush to repeat to his mother, he is in the way of temptation, and no one can tell where he will stop.  Many a man dying in disgrace, in prison, or on the scaffold, has looked back with bitter remorse to the time when he first listened to a sinful companion who came between him and a pious mother.

Girls, if you would be respected and honored in this life and form characters for heaven, make Kate’s reply your rule:—­

“What I cannot tell my mother is unfit for me to know." No other person can have as great an interest in your welfare and prosperity as a true, Christian mother.

Every girl should always remember that a Christian mother is her best earthly friend, from whom no secret should be kept.

HIGHEST aim and true endeavor; Earnest work, with patient might; Hoping, trusting, singing ever; Battling bravely for the right; Loving God, all men forgiving; Helping weaker feet to stand,—­These will make a life worth living, Make it noble, make it grand.

[Illustration]

A STORY OF SCHOOL LIFE

* * * * *

“Oh, girls!  I shall just die, I know I shall!” exclaimed Belle Burnette, going off into a hysterical fit of laughter, which she vainly pretended to smother behind an elegant lace edged handkerchief.