II. Bōrne, peep'-ing, brought (brawt), night, breath, vi'-o-lěts, lil'-y, flow'-ers, built (bilt), la-bûr'-num, thought (thawt), feath'-erş.

III. Mark the feet of the first stanza, and the accented syllables, noting the difference between the first and other lines:

"I re-mem-ber, I re-mem-ber

The house where I was born," etc.

IV. Lily cups; on the wing.

V. Why "made of light"? (lily cups.) "Set the laburnum "—what is meant? Comparison hinted at between "spirit flew in feathers" ("feathers" of hope; “flew,” like a bird) and “swallows on the wing," and contrast with its "heavy" present. What pun is implied in the fourth stanza, in using heaven as a synonym of sky? (When a child, I thought the sky so near that the tops of the fir trees touched it. Sky is a synonym of heaven; but heaven means not only the sky, but also the future abode of the blessed. Such a confusion of two different applications of a word is a pun.)

XLVIII. THE PRAIRIE ON FIRE.

1. "You have come to your recollections too late, miserable old man!" cried Middleton. "The flames are within a quarter of a mile of us, and the wind is bringing them down in this direction with dreadful rapidity."

2. "The flames! I care little for the flames. If I only knew how to circumvent the cunning of the Tetons, as I know how to cheat the fire of its prey, there would be nothing needed but thanks to the Lord for our deliverance. Do you call this a fire? If you had seen what I have witnessed in the eastern hills, when mighty mountains were like the furnace of a smith, you would have known what it was to fear the flames, and to be thankful that you were spared!

3. "Come, lads, come! it is time to be doing now, and to cease talking, for yonder curling flame is truly coming on like a trotting moose. Put hands upon this short and withered grass where we stand, and lay bare the earth."-" Would you think to deprive the fire of its victims in this childish manner?" exclaimed Middleton. A faint but solemn smile passed over the features of the old man as he answered: "Your grandfather would have said that, when the enemy was nigh, a soldier could do no better than to obey."

4. The captain felt the reproof, and instantly began to imitate the industry of Paul, who was tearing the decayed herbage from the ground in a sort of desperate compliance with the trapper's direction. Even Ellen lent her hands to the labor; nor was it long before Inez was seen similarly employed, though none among them knew why or wherefore.

5. When life is thought to be the reward of labor, men are wont to be industrious. A very few moments sufficed to lay bare a spot of some twenty feet in diameter. Into one edge of this little area the trapper brought the females, directing Middleton and Paul to cover their light and inflammable dresses with the blankets of the party.

6. So soon as this precaution was observed, the old man approached the opposite margin of the grass, which still environed them in a tall and dangerous circle, and, selecting a handful of the driest of the herbage, he placed it over the pan of his rifle. The light combustible kindled at the flash. Then he placed the little flame into a bed of the standing grass, and, withdrawing from the spot to the center of the ring, patiently awaited the result.

7. The subtle element seized with avidity upon its new fuel, and in a moment forked flames were gliding among the grass, as the tongues of ruminating animals are seen rolling among their food, apparently in quest of its sweetest portions. "Now," said the old man, holding up a finger, and laughing in his peculiarly silent manner, "you shall see fire fight fire! Ah me! many a time I have burned a smooth path from wanton laziness to pick my way across a tangled plain."

8. "But is this not fatal?" cried the amazed Middleton; "are you not bringing the enemy nigher to us, instead of avoiding it?"-"Do you scorch so easily? Your grandfather had a tougher skin. But we shall live to see; we shall all live to see." The experience of the trapper was in the right.

9. As the fire gained strength and heat, it began to spread on three sides, dying of itself on the fourth for want of aliment. As it increased, and the sullen roaring announced its power, it cleared everything before it, leaving the black and smoking soil far more naked than if the scythe had swept the place.

10. The situation of the fugitives would have still been hazardous had not the area enlarged as the flame encircled them. But by advancing to the spot where the trapper had kindled the grass, they avoided the heat, and in a very few moments the flames began to recede in every quarter, leaving them enveloped in a cloud of smoke, but perfectly safe from the torrent of fire that was still furiously rolling onward.

11. The spectators regarded the simple expedient of the trapper with that species of wonder with which the

courtiers of Ferdinand are said to have viewed the manner in which Columbus made his egg to stand on its end; though with feelings that were filled with gratitude instead of envy.

12. "Most wonderful!" said Middleton, when he saw the complete success of the means by which they had been rescued from a danger that he had conceived to be unavoidable. "The thought was a gift from Heaven, and the hand that executed it should be immortal."

13. "Old trapper," cried Paul, thrusting his fingers through his shaggy locks, "I have lined many a loaded bee into its hole, and know something of the nature of the woods; but this is robbing a hornet of his sting without touching the insect!"

14. "It will do-it will do!" returned the old man, who after the first moment of his success seemed to think

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no more of the exploit. "Let the flames do their work for a short half-hour, and then we will mount. That time is needed to cool the meadow, for these unshod beasts are as tender on the hoof as a barefooted girl."

15. The veteran, on whose experience they all so implicitly relied for protection, employed himself in reconnoitering objects in the distance, through the openings which the air occasionally made in the immense. bodies of smoke, that by this time lay in enormous piles on every part of the plain. James Fenimore Cooper.

FOR PREPARATION.-I. This extract is taken from Cooper's novel, "The Prairie." Have you read "The Prairie "?" The Spy"?" Lionel Lincoln"? In what region is the scene laid? How do you know? (by the prairie.) The Tetons were a tribe of Indians.