swarm of bees alight in her garden. In old times it was thought bees could be tolled down in some such manner. But bees have ways and habits all their own.

Bees are governed by a queen. One queen rules the hive; and in a well-proportioned hive of about twenty thousand bees, besides the queen, there are about nineteen thousand workers. The workers form the great body of the beehive, as they ought to of every human hive. Some of them make wax; some build the cells. The cells are beautiful specimens of insect labour: they are six-sided, half an inch deep, a quarter of an inch across, side by side, with walls as smooth and thin as paper. Others are provision merchants, visiting the fields and gardens for honey and pollen. Pollen is the fine dust of flowers. Others are nurses, feeding and taking care of the young.

The sting of the bee is a sharply-pointed lancet, with a bag of poison lying at the end of it, and a little tube to empty the poison into the wound which the lancet makes. The sting is their fighting arms, to defend themselves and make war upon their enemies.

Every year, in the early part of summer, one or two swarms leave the old hive to find a new home elsewhere.

Before leaving, they send out spies to find a good and suitable spot, who come back and report accordingly. The hive exhibits a scene of unusual buzzing and business, a day or two before the new colony emigrate. Rainy or cloudy weather will keep them back, but on the next sunshiny day the whole hive is in motion; and by and by the young queen and her attendants, followed by her great emigrant train, issue forth and take flight to form a new kingdom.

You have long ago, we suppose, learned that pretty lesson of bee industry in the little hymn:

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads her wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labour, or of skill,
I would be busy too:

For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be past;
That I may give, for every day,
Some good account at last.

BLIND ROBERT.

ONE day I met a little boy in the street, who was going along very slowly, feeling his way by the houses and the fences; and I knew that he was blind. If he had had eyes to see with, he would have been running and jumping about, or driving a hoop, or tossing a ball, like the other boys in the street. I pitied him. It seemed so hard for the little fellow to go about in the dark all the time, never to see the sun, or any of the pretty things in the world-never to see even the faces of his parents and brothers and sisters. So I stopped to talk with him.

He told me that his name was Robert, that his

father was sick at home, and that his mother had to take in washing, and work very hard to get a living. All the other children had some kind of work to do; but as he could not see to work, he was sent after clothes for his mother to wash. I asked him if he did not feel unhappy because he was blind. He looked very thoughtful and solemn for a moment. Then he smiled, and said, "Sometimes I think it hard to have to creep about so. Sometimes I want to look at the bright sun that warms me, and at the sweet birds that sing for me, and at the flowers that feel so soft when I touch them. But God made me blind, and I know that it is best for me. I am so glad that he did not make me deaf and dumb too. I am so glad that he gave me a good mother, and a Sunday school to go to, instead of making me one of the heathen children, that pray to snakes and idols."

But, Robert, if you could see, you could help your mother more.' I said this without thinking, and was sorry as soon as I said it; for the little boy's smile went right away, and tears filled his blind eyes, and ran down his pale cheeks.

"Yes," he said, "I often tell mother so; but she says that I help her a great deal now, and that she wouldn't spare me for the world; and father says I'm the best nurse he ever had, though I am blind." "I am sure you are a good boy, Robert," I answered quickly.

"No, sir," he said, "I am not good, but have got a very wicked heart; and I think a great many wicked thoughts; and if it wasn't for the Saviour, I don't know what I would do."

"And how does the Saviour help you?"

Oh, sir, I pray to him, and then it is as if he says, 'I forgive you, Robert; I love you, poor blind boy! I will take away your evil heart, and give you a new one.' I then feel so happy; and it seems to me as if I could almost hear the angels singing up in heaven."

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Well, Robert, that is right; and do you ever expect to see the angels ?"

"Oh, yes, sir! When I die, my spirit will not be blind. It is only my clay house that has no windows. I can see with my mind now, and that, mother tells me, is the way they see in heaven. And I heard father reading in the Bible the other day, where it tells about heaven, and it said there is no night there.' But here it is night to blind people all the time. Oh! sir, when I feel bad because I cannot see, I think about heaven, and it comforts me."

I saw now that Robert began to be uneasy, and acted as if he wanted to go on. I said, "Don't you like to talk with me, Robert ?"

"Yes, sir, I do; and it's very kind of you to speak to a blind boy; but mother will be waiting for the clothes."

This evidence of the little fellow's frankness and fidelity pleased me. I had become much interested, and made up my mind to find out more about him. So I took some money out of my pocket, and gave it to him, telling him to take it to buy something for his sick father. Again the tears filled his blind

eyes.

"Oh, sir," he said, “you are so kind! I was just

wishing I could buy something for poor sick father; he has no appetite, and we have nothing in the house but potatoes. He tries to eat them, and never complains; but if I could only get a chicken for him, it would make him better-I know it would. But I don't want you to give me the money: can't I work for you, and earn it ?"

I made him take the money, and then watched him, to see what he would do. He went as fast as he could for the clothes; then bought a chicken to make broth of; then a loaf of bread; and felt his way home, trembling all over with delight. I followed him, without his knowing it. He went to a little oldlooking house, that seemed to have but one room. I saw that he put the bread and chicken under the clothes, and went (as I thought by the sound) close to his father's bed before he showed them; then dropping the clothes, he held up the loaf in one hand, and the fowl in the other, saying, “See, father; see what God has sent you!"

He then told about my meeting him and giving him the money, and added, "I am sure, father, that God put it into the kind man's heart; for God sees how much you wanted something to nourish you."

I am afraid, children, that there were some tears in uncle Jesse's eyes, as he turned away from the blind boy's home.

How beautiful to love God and to trust in him, as

poor Robert did! Could you be so contented and happy, if you were as poor as he was, and blind too? Think about it, dear children.