QUESTIONS:-1. What does this poem tell about?

2. What was this noble boy's name? 3. In what state was the ship? 4. Who was the captain? 5. What had happened to him? 6. Repeat the lines which tell you this. 7. Where were all the officers and sailors? 8. How could the boy see them? 9. Tell what the boy was like as he stood there. 10. When only would he leave his position? 11. To whom did he call? 12. Did he get an answer? 13. Why? 14. How many times did he call upon his father? 15. What happened to him? 16. What was the noblest life that perished there? 17. Do you think so? 18. Why do you think so?

As a little brook was running merrily along on its way to the sea, one of its water-drops suddenly stood still, and stopped behind, being caught by the root of a forget-me-not which grew by the side of the brook. A little boy who saw this waterdrop stop was curious to know all about it.

So

he went down to the spot where it lay, and asked it whence it came.

"A long while ago," said the water-drop, "I lived with my countless sisters in the great sea. We had all sorts of pastimes. Sometimes we mounted up high into the air, and peeped at the stars; and then we sunk down deep below, and saw how the great whales sported about, and the little fishes chased one another.

"But I wished to get higher; and so one day when the sun rose out of the sea, I clung fast to one of his hot beams, and thought that I should now reach the stars, and become one of them. But I had not got up very far when the sunbeam shook me off, and let me fall into a black cloud. Then I sailed about in the cloud,-now high up in the sky, and now low down near the earth,-till the cloud came near the top of a mountain, when a flash of fire suddenly darted through it, and a loud and frightful sound rung all around. I thought I must surely die. But the cloud laid itself down softly on the top of the mountain, and I escaped by trickling into a little hole in the ground.

"I now wished to rest a while; but the little hole into which I fell was much deeper than I thought; so I slipped down and down, till I reached a place which was pitch dark, and where I could neither see nor hear anything. Then I began to fear that I was to be a prisoner for life.

Happily, my fears were groundless; for after a long and tiresome journey in the dark, and over all sorts of soils and rocks, I was at length permitted to come up once more into the free, cheerful air. And now I will run back to my sisters, and there wait patiently till I am called to something better."

All this the water-drop told the little boy. But hardly had she ceased speaking, when the root of the forget-me-not caught her by the hair and drew her in, that she might become a floweret, and twinkle brightly as a blue star on the green firmament of earth. Observe, this drop of water was at first drawn from the ocean by the heat of the sun,—then, formed part of a cloud,―fell to the earth in rain,-sank deep in it, and rose again in a bubbling spring.

QUESTIONS:--1. What is the subject of this lesson? 2. What do you mean by a little brook? 3. What is the difference between a brook and a river? 4. Where do brooks mostly run into? 5. Where do rivers run to? 6. What is the meaning of a brook running merrily? 7. What happened to one of the drops? 8. What kept it back? 9. Give the names of some other flowers which you like. 10. What question did the little boy ask at the brook? 11. Let one scholar tell one bit of the brook's answer, the next in the class tell some more, and so on till the whole answer is told. 12. What do you think of this story? 13. Try and tell it in your own words.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine on the stem;

Since the lovely are sleeping,

Go sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter

Thy leaves o'er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,

When friendships decay,
And from love's shining circle
Thy gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,

Oh! who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?

QUESTIONS:-1. Are roses all of one colour? 2. Name the colours you have seen. 3. What does the poet notice as particular about this rose? 4. Where was it? 5. What had become of its companions? 6. Why? 7. What is the meaning of "kindred " here? 8. What does blush mean? 9. How may a rose be said to blush? 10. What colour of rose cannot blush? 11. What must have been the colour of the poet's rose? 12. What did he do with this rose? 13. What does he mean by "thy mates of the garden"? 14. What other flowers besides the rose are scented? 15. What do you mean by a flower being dead? 16. Have the leaves no scent after the rose is dead? 17. Why does the poet say "scentless and dead"?