the sides comfortably; and I make the cells every one with six sides, fitting one into the other so neatly and nicely; and I make all the openings into them underneath. I daresay you think it would be much more clever to make the holes up, don't you? You don't turn your beds and cribs and cradles upside down, I know, and you don't hang them to your ceilings, and expect people and children to sleep in them without tumbling out. But I want the top of my terrace flat and even to walk on, and I shouldn't like to crawl on the heads of my own babies, should I? Besides, my little ones are so clever, they can lie quite as well one way as the other. Heads up or heads down, it is no matter to them; and that is very convenient.

Well, I am obliged to leave off building at last. I have made a great many cells, and filled each one with a dear little grub, and the time comes when I must take care of them. I do. I feed them, and see that they are all right; and in a few weeks there pops one wasp's head out of one cell, and there pops another wasp's head out of another cell, and there pops another and another, till I have quite a large family round me. At once these are just as busy as I. They begin to make paper pillars or columns under the first terrace, and they hang another terrace to them, and they make it of cells with all the openings underneath, and fill all the cells with dear little grubs (my grand-grubs, you know), precisely as well as I could do it myself. There are a great many cells in each one of these terraces. How many do you think? More than a thousand! And as my large earth-house will hold about fifteen of these terraces, each one hanging underneath the other, we are altogether a little city of about fifteen thousand inhabitants. We come to more than that

by the end of the summer; because directly a cell is emptied of its wasp, another grub is laid in it, till each one has been filled about three times. And then there is no more use of my clever house. We all go away from it, and make new ones next year. Perhaps two or three delicate lady-wasps, who feel the cold very much, stay in it all the winter; but when the spring comes, and the warmth makes them stir, they crawl out, and never think of again crawling in. They all, just as I do, set to work and get a house ready for themselves. Ah! we are really very clever, and can do something besides buzz, buzz, buzz.

THOSE EVENING BELLS.

1.

Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells,

Of youth, and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime.

2.

Those joyous hours are passed away;
And many a heart, that then was gay,
Within the tomb now darkly dwells,
And hears no more those evening bells.

3.

And so 'twill be when I am gone;
That tuneful peal will still ring on,
While other bards shall walk these dells,
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells!

LETTER.

To Master Edward C. Sterling, London.

HILLSIDE, VENTNOR, 20th June 1844.

MY DEAR BOY-We have been going on here as quietly as possible, with no event that I know of. There is nothing except books to occupy me. But you may suppose that my thoughts often move towards you, and that I fancy what you may be doing in the great city-the greatest on the earth-where I spent so many years of my life. I first saw London when I was between eight and nine years old, and then lived in or near it for the whole of the next ten, and more there than anywhere else for seven years longer. Since then, I have hardly ever been a year without seeing the place, and have often lived in it for a considerable time. There I grew from childhood to be a man. My little brothers and sisters, and, since, my mother, died and are buried. there. There I first saw your mamma, and was there married. It seems as if, in some strange way, London were a part of me, or I of London. I think of it often -not as full of noise, and dust, and confusion, but as something silent, grand, and everlasting.

When I fancy how you are walking in the same streets, and moving along the same river that I used to watch so intently, as if in a dream, when younger than you are, I could gladly burst into tears-not of grief, but with a feeling that there is no name for. Everything is so wonderful, great, and holy; so sad, and not yet bitter; so full of death, and so bordering on heaven! Can you understand anything of this? If you can, you

will begin to know what a serious matter our life is; how unworthy and stupid it is to trifle it away without heed; what a wretched, insignificant, worthless creature any one comes to be who does not, as soon as possible, bend his whole strength, as in stringing a stiff bow, to doing whatever task lies before him.

We have a mist here to-day from the sea. It reminds me of that which I used to see from my house in St Vincent, rolling over the great volcano and the mountains round it. I used to look at it from our windows with your mamma, and you a little baby in her arms.

This letter is not so well written as I could wish, but I hope you will be able to read it.-Your affectionate рара, JOHN STERLING.

THE RIVER.

O tell me, pretty river! whence do thy waters flow? and whither art thou roaming, so pensive and so slow ?

'My birthplace was the mountain; my nurse, the April showers; my cradle was a fountain, o'er-curtained by wild flowers. One morn I ran away, a madcap, hoyden rill -and many a prank that day I played adown the hill!

And then, 'mid meadowy banks, I flirted with the flowers, that stooped, with glowing lips, to woo me to their bowers. But these bright scenes are o'er, and darkly flows my wave; I hear the ocean's roar, and there must be my grave!'

Nothing is more common than a coal-fire; we are all of us constantly using it in one way or another; yet how to make and manage a coal-fire rightly is known to very few.

In making a fire, some shavings or pieces of paper are first laid down; over them some sticks; over them, again, some coal; after which a light is applied to the shavings or paper. Many persons, while following this plan, do not take care to leave the shavings and sticks loose, and over all put too much coal; consequently, the fire does not kindle readily, and for a time produces more smoke than fire. What is required is, that there should be spaces among the shavings and sticks for the air to get in, without which no burning can take place. It is also right to put on little coal at first, and that only in small pieces. When those pieces begin to burn, larger ones may be added.

Even the poking or stirring of a fire may be done in a foolish or in a rational manner. We should never beat or smash the fire from above, but always stir it from below upwards, thus allowing the entrance of air, the oxygen of which is essential to combustion.

On the other hand, to save a fire and keep it slowly burning, it is necessary to gather it close together, and cover it over with small coal or cinders.