your balls and skipping-ropes put away, as the hot summer days came on; and now that these have vanished, and given place to autumn, your amusements are again changed, and suited to the cool bracing weather which every rolling season brings us. It is true, the declining year, the dead and dying flowers, and the falling leaves, suggest, particularly to those advanced in life, the end of life which soon will overtake us all; yet if they have lived good and virtuous lives it will not come too soon. Some people seem to think that our youthful days are our happiest, and that grown-up people are always burdened with cares, and experience little or no happiness. "Ah," says Mr. Croaker, "these boys and girls are very happy now, but wait till they are grown-up men and women, and I guess they will know what trouble is." Now, this is totally wrong. I believe, if children are wise and good, and strive every day to be better, that their real enjoyments will increase as they go along, and that the evening of their lives will be the happiest of all. Young people generally do not realize what sin is, and hence their enjoyments are in a measure innocent. But if, after they know what a wrong action is, they love it, regardless of the laws of God, I do not wonder that they feel guilty and unhappy, and have bad dreams. Try Mark Forrester's advice, all you boys and girls, who are looking for a long succession of stormy days by and by. If what he says don't prove true, why you may say he is a story teller! And when you hear a person complaining of the misery of this world, and speaking just as though we had been created to be made wretched, run with all your might, for the fellow, in nine cases out of ten, would pick your pocket if he could get a chance! I have no doubt that Mr. Croaker was a horse thief.

Look abroad on yonder hill, and see what a variety of colors there are on the trees. Red, green, yellow, white, orange, nearly every hue you can imagine. And what a beautiful head-dress they make! It is related that the lady of the American minister to England once attended a party given by Queen Victoria with a wreath of autumn leaves around her head; and that the persons present could not be made to believe that they were of the natural colors. "Why,' said the queen, "what a magnificent sight it must be to see your forests, if they are as beautifully colored as your head-dress!" True

enough, it is a fine sight. I once saw a company of little girls coming from a thick wood in a country town, and they did look charming indeed. Be careful what you gather in your excursions after colored leaves. A friend of mine, two years since, went a short distance into the country, and returned in the evening with a nice parcel of these emblems of decay. In a few hours his hands began to swell up, and for several days he was the very image of distress. He had gathered part of his bouquet from a copse of dogwood, the leaves of which in the autumn are of a most tempting red color, and was sadly poisoned. The leaves look somewhat like laurel, and the sappy bark is very poisonous. A witty person was once asked what the difference was between a dog and dogwood. One is known by its bark, the other by his bite, immediately answered the wit.

Perhaps the most pleasant employment for the boys at this season is gathering nuts. Hazelnuts and some other varieties are ripe in September; but the walnut, the chestnut, the butternut, and some others, do not fall until we have several hard, freezing, severe frosts; black frosts, as they are sometimes called. I suppose my younger readers imagine all frosts to be white, like what we see upon the boards on a cold morning. They are all white; but the hard ones -the real freezers, leave a black mark. After a black frost, and the warm sun has risen, the leaves of the tender gar den vegetables turn of a very dark color, nearly black, and hence the name of a black frost. Well, such a frost as this opens the burs of the chestnut, and after a high wind to rattle out the nuts, you may find the ground about covered.

One afternoon, not long since, I was in the country walking leisurely by the side of a fence nearly overrun with bushes, when I heard voices upon the other side. I listened, and heard a small boy and his more mature sister, lamenting the loss of something. Probably their names were Willie and Mary.

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'Well, this is pretty well," said Willie; "only last week there were plenty of hazelnuts on these bushes, and now they are all gone. I guess Rob Burr has been here and stole them all."

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Hush, Will," said Mary, "you have no right to accuse Robert of such conduct. He is a good boy, and I am sure would not steal your hazelnuts. Perhaps some one else has taken them."

"Well, somebody has taken them," continued Will. "Hazelnuts don't have legs and walk off, not in our lay. And yet," said he lifting up the overhanging bushes, "I don't see any tracks."

Reader, who do you think stole Will's hazelnuts? What! can't guess? Why, I saw the thief sitting on the fence, not two rods off, all the while Will and his sister were looking for tracks! And for fear some of you might lose your hazelnuts, and not know the thief I have caused his portrait to be taken; so you may look out for him Here is the little rascal.

There, leave your hazelnuts on the bushes until they are fully ripe, and this little rogue will save you the trouble of gathering them.

Butternuts are ripe somewhat before chestnuts. Many a day have I rowed a boat along the Connecticut river to gather the butternuts on the overhanging branches. Frequently a gray squirrel would be found intruding, and then a plan was formed to shake him off into the river. This was good sport, but it did not always end exactly right. I remember coming very near being ducked

myself once, and have seen one or two boys, who were less lucky, get a swim, on similar occasions. However, no harm was done, only a good deal of sport was created among their schoool-fellows.

THE late King of the French, and one of the most remarkable men of the world, was born in Paris, on the sixth day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-three. He was the eldest son of Philippe Joseph, Duke of Orleans.

So far as ancestry could avail-and in his case it availed muchhe was a prince by French descent, and had direct relationship to the line of Stuart, or Queen Victoria's family. While a child he was entitled Duke of Valois. At the age of twelve his father succeeded to the title of Duke of Orleans, and the boy became the Duke of Chartres, taking the place vacated by his father, as he was always entitled to do.

Louis Philippe, at an early age, was put under the instruction and government of the Countess de Genlis, a lady eminently qualified, by extensive learning, natural genius, and a happy disposition, to form the mind and habit of a prince. She taught him to love God and his works, and to love man. She not only taught him the common branches of polite learning, but to speak with ease the Italian, German, and English languages, the latter of which were accomplishments soon called into requisition.

She had him instructed in gardening, turning, basket-making,

carpentry, and weaving-a fine lot of trades for a prince! in addition to all this, he was a doctor; he studied botany and medicine under the direction of a medical gentleman.

It was the intention of the countess to make her charge a good, intelligent, and hardy man, or king, if perchance he might be a ruler. How she prepared him for hardships and trying emergencies, we may learn from one of her remarks, after political influences had driven him from France, a mere youth, and almost penniless. She says, "How often, since his misfortunes, have I applauded myself for the education I had given him; for having taugnt him the