ification, or edification, any stray dog, | day might hope to accomplish a mile cat, lamb, or calf.

"I don't mind a bit, father. I don't want you to buy it for me out of your money; but I have got ten pounds of my own in the bank, and if you will only get it out for me I will buy it myself, and give up my puppy and my pony, and only love that dear little calf."

"But next year that calf will be a cow."

"Oh, yes, and then it will have another little calf, and so I shall always have a calf to play with."

on Tuesday, nor was I disappointed. When after some preliminary canters in the garden I ventured to take the road, I was so far advanced in the art that I neither felt myself impelled to throw myself into the hedge, as one man who had neglected to learn to dismount confessed that he was in early days fain to do whenever he met a cart. Nor again was I compelled to enlist the services of stray tramps and passersby, which was the habit of another of my acquaintances who boldly sallied forth abroad at a period when he had

but was absolutely unable to mount without assistance. Hitherto I have met with no startling adventures. I have neither charged a windmill like Don Quixote or a traction-engine like a more modern acquaintance, I have not been pulled out of a ditch by my wife or tried to clear a sheep like my Devonshire heroine, and I have turned a deaf ear to the suggestion that I should purchase a second-hand Sociable.

And in like manner she had doubt- | mastered the science of dismounting less expected that a little bicycle would either grow up with herself or else multiply and replenish the earth with smaller bicycles. The child's fancy, then, had not seriously disturbed me. But that my wife should not only have so far forsworn all her old-time antipathies as to meditate herself to play the rôle of a "horrid creature," but should actually have tried to steal a march upon me and learn as it were upon the sly, was altogether too much for my feelings. How was I to know that she would not go off biking with some other fellow, and leave me powerless to follow?

From that day I was possessed with a grim determination to learn the art at any cost. But, unlike the lady, I was oppressed by no feeling of false modesty, but rather gloried in my shame, and announced to all who cared to know it that I had made up my mind to ride a bicycle. I learnt on a principle of my own which I can confidently recommend to beginners. I was helped on to my machine by a groom at one end of a gravel path, and after being fairly started, ordered the man to let go, and struck out manfully for a bush which was at the farther end of the same path. The bush, which was thick and thornless, was at once my goal and my buffer, and I felt a proud man when for the first time I charged it violently.

Dimidium facti, qui bene cœpit, habet. I argued to myself that a man who could ride thirty yards alone on Mon

From Sunday at Home.

EASTER DANCES AT MEGARA.

Easter Monday seems a holiday all the world over! Athens was quiet and empty-the people delighting to go for rambles and excursions in the beautiful environs. We betook ourselves to the Hill of Philopappus. At the tiny church of S. Demetrius, in the valley, a baptism was going on. There was a large crowd, nearly all men, many remaining outside. So did we. A table bearing a holy picture was put up outside the church, and the picture was kissed by the worshippers. The Greek Church practises baptism by immersion. The priest, a tall, noble-looking man, clad in red and gold embroidery, made his oration outside the chapel, and was eloquent in gesture and tones. We could gather that he made Easter metaphors of the young life beginning, the glory of the fresh spring, and the city rising again from the monumental stones of her hills. We had been

noticed as strangers, and a youth ad- | Megara, if but little show of wealth. vanced to us and gracefully offered each In its tiny "Place" was a roomy, bright of us the little metal token and ribbon church, with a cheery man to do the distributed among the guests. The honors to anybody who looked in. Easter festivities are wound up on Beyond the town lies a wide plain with Easter Tuesday, on which day the a natural platform of low rocks on one famous "Easter dances" of Megara are side. On these rocks, bough-screened held, giving excellent opportunity for booths had been improvised, where seeing national dress and manners. A lemonade, oranges, and the resinous railway journey of one hour and forty country wine were sold. Here sat minutes connects Megara with Athens, folks from all the country-side: fathers, and the route lies along the shores of mothers, and children, merry, happy, the Bay of Salamis and past Eleusis, and innocent. The costumes of the now a mere poor village, but once the women were wonderful; beautiful in temple of the great "mysteries" form, exquisite in color, delicate of whereby the ancient Greek caught handiwork. Everything looked perglimpses of higher life. The scenery is fectly fresh but we were assured that exquisite; indeed it is impossible to many of the dresses and ornaments exaggerate the natural grandeur and were heirlooms. In some of the dances loveliness of Greece. men were alone; in others, women; in a few, men and women joined. music which accompanies the low chant-like singing consisted of a wooden pipe, a mandoline, a small guitar, and a drum. This dance, like that of the Royal Guard, is highly decorous, and the happy faces wore the same serious expression, marking the religious origin of the festival. I noticed many very beautiful and fine faces. The Megareans boast of the comparative purity of their descent from the ancient Greeks. Certainly these Easter dances illustrate the sculptures on antique friezes.

The little town of Megara, once a place of great importance, straggles up a hillside. As we climb, we notice that nearly all the houses have beside them an open oven, something like a beehive with a big cavity in the side. The Greeks have always been prone to learn much from the bee-a very important creature to them in the olden days, when his labors furnished the sole sweetening of their food! It is said that the architect of the great Greek church of S. Sophia at Constantinople (now used as a Turkish mosque) got his inspiration from the study of bees' work. There was no squalor in

The

Ivory. The African elephant will in a grow than to fell. It requires an apprefew years become a rarity, if the ivory ciable number of years to grow a good pair trade is to continue flourishing at its of tusks, and tusks must be both good and present rate. Ivory now reaches Europe many to form a load of over six hundred chiefly from the Congo, and as the king of tons. A few years back one of the Shefthe Belgians is the ruler of the Congo field firms was using up every year an State, its exports naturally come to amount of ivory for knife-handles that Antwerp, which has had an irregular sort would account for the slaughter of eight of an ivory trade ever since 1546, when hundred elephants, and several other it was started by the Spaniards. Last silver-plate and cutlery firms were using year some three hundred and seventy-six almost as much. The result was that the tons were sold in London, and only half as demand exceeded the supply to such an much at Antwerp; but this year the Lon- extent that xylonite and other substitutes don consignments dropped to two hundred found their way largely and permanently and forty-nine tons, and Antwerp steps into every-day use. It is in the further into the leading place, Liverpool having adoption of these substitutes that the elebeen distanced some time since. Elephant must look for his survival. phants are like timber; they take longer to

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