glaring, without making one moral reflection upon the danger of such false admiration as leads people many a time to burn their fingers. You will then begin to show great partiality for some very good aunts, who will contribute all they can towards spoiling you; but you will be equally fond of an excellent mamma, who will teach you, by her example, all sorts of good qualities; only let me warn you of one thing, my dear, that is not to learn of her to have such an immoderate love of home as is quite contrary to all the privileges of this polite age, and to give up so entirely all those pretty graces of whim, flutter, and affection, which so many charitable poets have declared to be the prerogative of our sex. Oh! my poor cousin, to what purpose will you boast this prerogative, when your nurse tells you, (with a pious care to sow the seeds of jealousy and emulation as early as possible,) that you have a fine little brother come to put your nose out of joint?" There will be nothing to be done then but to be mighty good; and prove what, believe me, admits of very little dispute (though it has occasioned abundance) that we' girls, however people give themselves airs of being disappointed, are by no means to be despised. The men unenvied shine in public; but it is we must make their homes delightful to them; and, if they provoke us, no less uncomfortable. I do not expect you to answer this letter yet awhile; but, as I dare say, you have the greatest interest with your papa, will beg you to prevail upon him that we may know by a line (before his time is engrossed by another secret committee) that you and your mamma are well. In the meantime, I will only assure you that all here rejoice in your existence extremely; and that I am, my very young correspondent, most affectionately yours, &c.

Catherine Talbot.

THE RETURN.

ONE climbs into his arms, another

Clings smiling round his knee;

A third is lifted by its mother

Its father's face to see;

The cradled innocent, his youngest treasure,
Holds out his dimpled arms, and crows for pleasure.

"IF F he isn't fast asleep. Lord! Lord!" cried Jem, gazing at the child, "who, to look upon a sleeping baby, and to know what things are every day done in the world, would ever think that all men were sleeping babes once! Put it to bed, Sue!"

St. Giles and St. James.

OU

THE CHILD-POET.

You have watched a child playing, in those wondrous years

when belief is not bound to the eyes and the ears, and the vision divine is so clear and unmarred, that each baker of pies in the dirt is a bard! Give a knife and a shingle, he fits out a fleet, and, on that little mud-puddle over the street, his invention, in purest good faith, will make sail round the globe with a puff of his breath for a gale, will visit, in barely ten minutes, all climes, and find North-western passages hundreds of times. Or, suppose the young poet fresh stored with delights from that Bible of childhood, the Arabian Nights, he will turn to a crony, and cry, "Jack, let's play that I am a Genius!" Jacky straightway makes Aladdin's lamp out of a stone, and for hours they enjoy each his own supernatural powers.

James Russel Lowell,

SIMPLE PLEASURES.

YOU need not surround your children with a little world of turner's toys. Let their eggs be white, not figured and painted; they can dress them out of their own imaginations.

Jean Paul.

Do you think that a child who will spend an hour delightedly

in galloping round the garden on his horse, which horse. is a stick, regards that stick as a mere bit of wood? No; that stick is to him instinct, with imaginings of a pony's pattering feet, and shaggy mane, and erect little ears.

Boyd.

A

ND children are more busy at their play
Than those that wiseliest pass their time away.

Samuel Butler.

TRULY, there is nothing in the world so blessed or so sweet as the heritage of bairns.

Mrs. Oliphant.

A PICTURE.

THE bonnie, bonnie bairn, who sits with careless grace,
Glowing in the fire, with his wee, round face,
For all so sage he looks, what can the laddie ken?
He's thinking of nothing; like many mighty men.

James Ballantyne.

"A married lady of thirty odd."
Every evening I see in their beds
A "baker's dozen" of curly heads;
Every morning my slumbers greet
The patter, patter, of twenty-six feet.
Thirteen little hearts are always in a flutter,

Till thirteen little mouths are filled with bread and butter.
Thirteen little tongues are busy all day long,
And thirteen little hands with doing something wrong.

Till I fain am to do

With an energy too,

As did the old woman who lived in a shoe.

And when my poor husband comes home from his work,

Tired and hungry, and fierce as a Turk,

What do you think is the picture he sees?

A legion of babies, all in a breeze.

Johnny a crying,

And Lucy a sighing,

And worn-out mamma, with her hair all a flying,

Strong and angry Stephen

Beating little Nelly;

Willie in the pantry

Eating currant jelly;

Charlie strutting round in papa's Sunday coat;

Harry at the glass, with a razor at his throat;
Robert gets his fingers crushed when Susy shuts the door,
Mitigates their aching with a forty pounder roar;
Baby at the coal-hod hurries to begin

Throwing in his mite to the universal din.

he

Alas! my lord and master, being rather weak of nerve,
Begins to lose his patience in the stunning topsy-turvy,
And then the frightened little ones all fly to me for shelter,
And so the drama closes 'mid a general helter-skelter.

I'll give you my name,
Lest you think me a myth;
Yours, very respectfully,

Mrs. John Smith.

THE MOTHER'S COMPLAINT.

WEARIED is the mother

That has a restless wean,

A wee, stumpy bairnie,

Heard whene'er he's seen;
That has a battle, aye, with sleep
Before he'll close an e'e;

But a kiss from off his rosy lips

Gives strength anew to me.

William Miller.

THE CHARGE OF INFANTRY.

BETSEY'S got another baby!

Charming precious little type!
Grandma says and she knows, surely-
That you never saw its like.

Isn't it a beaming beauty,

Lying there so sweet and snug?
Mrs. Jones, pray stop your scandal ;
Darling's nose is not a pug!