"The people's shouts were long and loud
My mother, shuddering, closed her ears;
'Rejoice! rejoice!' still cried the crowd,

My mother answered with her tears.
'Why are you crying thus?' said I,
'While others laugh and shout for joy;'
She kissed me and, with such a sigh!
She called me her poor orphan boy.

"Oh! were I by your bounty fed-
Nay, gentle lady, do not chide-
Trust me, I mean to earn my bread;
The sailor's orphan boy has pride.
Lady, you weep-ha! this to me?

You'll give me clothing, food, employ?
Look down, dear parents, look and see
Your happy orphan boy!"

The Nile's proud fight.---The famous battle of the Nile, in which Nelson defeated the French, in the year 1798. Lighted windows.—It is customary to illuminate our houses after a great victory.

QUESTIONS:-1. What is an orphan? 2. Where was this boy's father killed? 3. Who gained the battle? 4. In what year? 5. How did the people show their joy at the victory? 6. What did the lady promise to give the boy?

The Spring of Water.

A LITTLE spring had lost its way
Among the grass and fern;
A passing stranger scooped a well,
Where weary man might turn.

He walled it in, and hung with care
A ladle at its brink-

He thought not of the deed he did,
But judged that toil might drink.

He passed again, and lo! the well,
By summers never dried,

Had cooled ten thousand parched tongues,
And saved a life beside.

A nameless man, amid a crowd
That thronged the daily mart,
Let fall the words of hope and love,
Unstudied from the heart,

A whisper on the tumult thrown,
A transitory breath—

It raised a brother from the dust,
It saved a soul from death.

O fount! O fruitful word of love!
O thought at random cast!
Ye were but little at the first,
But mighty at the last!

THIS well-known fish inhabits the northern seas. It is a migratory fish, annually leaving the seaits proper residence-and proceeding for many miles up rivers for the purpose of depositing its spawn. This done, it returns to the sea in the

spring. A cold climate and clear water seem to be necessary to its constitution.

The salmon grows to the length of four or five feet, and usually weighs twelve or fifteen pounds. The body is elongated and compressed; the colour silvery-grey, with spots; the head of moderate size, and the upper jaw rather the longer.

Almost all parts of the mouth, and even the tongue, are furnished with pointed teeth, as in the other trouts; and, like them, it has a sort of fatty fin upon the lower part of the back. All the trouts devour their prey greedily, and, in general, seek the purest water.

As soon as the ice melts, the salmon enters the mouths of rivers, and, as it is known, almost always of those which gave them birth. They swim usually in immense numbers, in the middle of the stream, and near the surface; their progress is slow, and they make a great noise in sporting, if the weather be fine.

They are easily frightened, either by sudden noise, or floating timber; and on such occasions sometimes turn aside from their course, and return to the sea. When further advanced they make the most determined efforts to surmount rapids and water-falls, and will leap a fall of twelve or fifteen feet in height.

If alarmed, they dart away with so great swiftness that the eye can hardly follow them. The rapidity of this motion has been proved to equal

twenty or twenty-five miles per hour. They swim far into the interior of the continents, and deposit their spawn in the lakes about the head waters of the longest rivers.

When the young are about a foot long, they descend the rivers, and take refuge in the ocean. Late in the following spring, or in the beginning of summer, and after the old ones have ascended, the young again enter the rivers, and are then about eighteen inches in length. They again seek the ocean on the return of frosts. At two years old the salmon weighs six or eight pounds, and it requires five or six years to attain the weight of ten or twelve.

"The salmon possess remarkable swiftness and strength. The fisherman is obliged to take them quickly by the head and tail, and to throw them ashore, when they are immediately caught by other men, who fling them still farther from the water. If this is not done with great quickness and care many of the fishes escape.

QUESTIONS:-1. To what genus, or kind, does the salmon belong? 2. What is meant by the salmon being a migratory fish? 3. For what purpose does it migrate? 4. What sort of climate does it like? 5. And what kind of water? 6. What is the salmon's length? 7. Its weight? 8. Its shape? 9. Its colour? 10. What kind of teeth has it got? 11. When do the salmon enter the mouths of rivers? 12. How do they swim? 13. And in what part of the river? 14. How do they manage to get up rapids and rocky places? 15. How high are they said to be able to leap? 16. What is the weight of the salmon at two years old? 17. About how old is it when it is ten or twelve pounds weight?