At length, however, the surprise being over, the children removed their wraps, Jim refilled his pipe, and Phoebe settled herself in her chair.  She was slowly revolving in her mind the question whether it would be best to offer her visitors a lunch of cookies or one of apples, when Jessie said: 

“Phoebe, wouldn’t you like to have me read you a chapter or two?”

“’Deed and I would, miss, and I’d be that grateful that I couldn’t express myself.  My eyes, you see, are getting old, and Jim’s not much better, and neither of us was ever a scholard.”

So Jessie read in her sweet, clear voice the chapters beloved in palace and in cottage, about the holy city New Jerusalem, and about the pure river of water of life, clear as crystal; about the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations; about the place where they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign for ever and ever.

“Dear me, dear me!” exclaimed Phoebe, “it seems almost like being there, doesn’t it?  Now I’ll have something to think of to-night if I lie awake with the rheumatism.”

“We’re going to sing to you, too,” was Tommy’s rejoinder.

Then he and Jessie sang “It’s coming, coming nearer, that lovely land unseen,” and “O, think of the home over there” and Phoebe’s favorite: 

    “In the far better land of glory and light
    The ransomed are singing in garments of white,
    The harpers are harping and all the bright train
    Sing the song of redemption, the Lamb that was slain.”

Jim wiped his eyes as they finished.  He and Phoebe had once had a little boy and girl, but both had long, long been in the “better land.”  Yet though he wept it was in gladness, for the reading and singing had seemed to open a window through which he might look into the streets of the heavenly city.

Thus Tommy and Jessie had brought sunshine to the cottage on that rainy Sunday afternoon.  They had given the cup of cold water—­surely they had their reward.

How Sammy Earned the Prize.

BY MRS. M.E.  SANGSTER.

“And now,” said the Principal, looking keenly and pleasantly through his spectacles, “I have another prize offer to announce.  Besides the prizes for the best scholarship, and the best drawing and painting, and for punctuality, I am authorized by the Trustees of this Academy to offer a prize for valor.  Fifty dollars in gold will be given the student who shows the most courage and bravery during the next six months.”

Fifty dollars in gold!  The sum sounded immense in the ears of the boys, not one of whom had ever had five dollars for his very own at one time, that is in one lump sum.  As they went home one and another wondered where the chance to show true courage was to come in their prosaic lives.

“It isn’t the time when knights go round to rescue forlorn ladies and do brave deeds,” said Johnny Smith, ruefully.