Little Elsie and Gertie live in the country.  They do not see the gay shops full of pretty things that amuse children in New York, and they have never been to a bazaar, or to the Zoological Gardens, but they have sweet flowers to smell and look at, and live creatures about them at home.  They find amusements at all seasons of the year, and are very merry.  You see them now in the field where the grass has been cut and is drying into hay that the horses and cows will eat.  The children have had fine fun in the hay; they have spread and tossed it, and Gertie has pretended to feed her toy goat with it, and now she wants Elsie to hide her in it that she may jump out and surprise James their brother, who is coming in at the gate.

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“Lamb of God!  I look to Thee,
Thou shalt my example be;
Thou art gentle, meek and mild;
Thou wast once a little child.

Fain I would be as Thou art. 
Give me thy obedient heart: 
Thou art pitiful, and kind;
Let me have thy loving mind.

Let me above all fulfil
God my heavenly Father’s will;
Never his good Spirit grieve,
Only to his glory live.

Loving Jesus, gentle Lamb! 
In thy gracious hands I am;
Make me, Saviour, what Thou art;
Live thyself within my heart.

I shall then show forth thy praise;
Serve thee all my happy days;
Then the world shall always see
Christ, the Holy Child in me.”

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Puppies and tortoise.

A sight most strange and wonderful
  Three little puppies saw—­
A creature out of shell of horn
  Popped out a head and claw.

They jumped and barked, and barked again,
  And stared with open eyes;
The sight of such a strange shaped thing
  So filled them with surprise.

They wondered at its smooth, brown shell,
  Its skin both brown and green;
And thought it was the strangest sight
  They ever yet had seen.

They would have tried to bite and scratch
  This funny looking thing;
But now they thought it might have hid
  A sharp and biting sting.

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“I’m grandmother.”

Mary is a good little girl, but is meddlesome.  She has a good Grandmother, called Mrs. Mason, and she sometimes goes to her house.  One day Mary got into mischief.  Seeing her Grandmother’s spectacles on the table, she put them on her nose, and said, “I’m Grandmother.”  Mary began to march about the room in a very grand way.  Presently the spectacles fell off, and the glasses were broken.  Poor Mary cried bitterly, and at first did not know what to do; but when Mrs. Mason came in, she told her all, and promised never to play “Grandmother” again.  Mrs. Mason told her not to cry, and she might play “Grandmother” as much as she liked, but she was to be very careful not to take her spectacles, and she would get her papa to get a pair of tin ones, with holes in them, so that she could see as well, and look all the funnier.