This is the way in which he helped:  “He worried from top to bottom of the castle with an air of infinite anxiety; he continually called the servants from their work to exhort them to be diligent, and buzzed about every hall and chamber as idly restless and importunate as a blue-bottle fly on a warm summer’s day.”  The book of Irving’s that some of you will like best of all is “The Alhambra.”  The Alhambra is the ancient and romantic palace of the Moors.  When he was in Spain, Irving spent many dreamy days amid its ruined splendors, whence the last of the Moors was long since driven into exile.  We have good reason to be glad that Irving saw the Alhambra, for this book is what came of it.  We shall all want to go where Irving went, after reading what he says of the Alhambra by moonlight.  “The garden beneath my window is gently lighted up, the orange and citron trees are tipped with silver, the fountain sparkles in the moonbeams, and even the blush of the rose is faintly visible. * * * The whole edifice reminds one of the enchanted palace of an Arabian tale.”

These, you know, are only crumbs, and crumbs which show Irving’s “warm heart” more, perhaps, than his “fine brain.”

To learn of his literary talent and well-deserved fame, of his rich fancy and his wonderful ability for story-telling, you can better afford to wait than to miss knowing how healthy, happy, and truly lovable was this man’s nature.  Now, with only one of the many sober, earnest thoughts, we must lay aside his books.

“If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a friend and hast ever wronged in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee, then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory.”

[Illustration]

THE BOY IN THE BOX.

BY HELEN C. BARNARD.

“You haven’t any more ambition than a snail, Joe Somerby!” said energetic Mrs. Somerby to her husband, as, with sleeves rolled to the elbow, she scoured the kitchen paint.

Joe, who was smoking behind the stove, slowly removed his pipe to reply: 

“Wal, if I haint, I haint; and that’s the end on ’t!”

“What would become of us if I was easy, too?” continued his spicy partner.  “Why can’t you have a little grit?”

Joe puffed away silently.

“Now, you pretend to carry on the rag business, you spend all your money a-buying and a-storing of ’em away; the back room’s full, the attic’s full, the barn’s full,—­I can’t stir hand or foot for them rags!  Why on earth don’t you sell ’em?”

“Waiting for ’em to rise, marm!”

“Always a-waiting!” retorted Mrs. Somerby, thrusting her scrubbing-brush and pail into a closet, and slamming the door upon her finger.  “Before you get through, the chance goes by.  Joe,” in a coaxing tone, “I’ve had a presentiment.”