With the acutest anguish, we watched the robber, as he carried off the darling objects of

our care.

O, how changed was the face of nature around us! The fields and groves no longer seemed pleasant, but desolation and gloom were spread over them. I wish those boys had stopped to consider whether the nest gave as much joy to them, as its loss gave grief to us. I hope you will teach all your acquaintances to be kind to the robins, and we will repay them with our sweetest music.

As Winter approached, all the robins in the region where we lived, flew away to the South. My mate and myself tarried at the North as long as we dared, in hopes we should find our lost treasures. When we could wait no longer, we started on our sad journey. Our loneliness seemed doubly distressing, when we saw other robins guiding their happy broods on their first journey.

I did not envy them, kind Miss, but thei happiness made me more keenly feel my own loss. When we returned in the Spring, we found that my old friend, the gardener, had a neat little cottage of his own. "Here is the very place for us to build our nest," said I to my mate, as I alighted upon an inviting spot, in a cherry tree, close to his chamber window.

"We succeeded so badly when we tried to conceal our nest," he replied, "that I am half inclined to take your advice." I then told the

story of the good man's kindness, and he agreed that we should be safer near his window than any where else.

You can guess how we were employed for several weeks from that time. I will only say that while busied in our pleasant occupation, it was a delight to us both to give our sweetest music to our loving neighbors.

After the young birds were hatched, you would have been delighted to have seen my mate flying around the doors and windows, picking up insects and bringing them to the

nest.

But I come now to the saddest day of my life. My mate had gone to the edge of a little pool, where insects were plenty, while 1 staid to shelter our little chicks. As he returned with a worm in his mouth, I saw him alight on the fence. A moment after I was startled by a noise like thunder, and looking up again, I saw him fall bleeding and fluttering to the ground.

I can never tell this part of my story, without stopping awhile to think of my dear mate, who will never join me again in my songs or my labors.

༢་་

By the help of the kind gardener and his wife, I reared my young ones. Just before we were ready to take our winter journey, the same boy who ran with a gun in his hand, and picked up my mate when he fell, passed near the spot where I was resting a moment

from my labors, on the branch of a tree. I started instantly to fly away, but I was not quick enough to avoid a heavy stone which. he aimed at me. It struck one of my wings

and almost broke it.

I was still able to fly, though with some. pain, and soon started southward with my young brood. I bore the suffering, from my wounded wing without complaint, till we arrived in the interior of Pennsylvania. Here I stopped, and my young ones reluctantly left me to take care of myself, while they went forward with the company. For several days I found food in abundance, but when that snow storm came, I was forced to seek it near your door.

You now have my story, sweet child, and as we are so well acquainted, I hope you will not object to my spending the winter with you; and I will repay your kindness as well as I know how.

QUESTIONS. By whom and how were the hopes of those birds suddenly blasted? 2 How did one of these birds at length lose its mate? 3 What afterwards happened to this bird itself? 4 What lesson is designed to be taught in this piece?

LESSON IX.

SPELL AND DEFINE.

1 Vanity, empty pride; conceit. 2 Understanding, the intellectual powers. 3 Surface, the exterior part of any thing; outside. 4 Attention, the act of attending. 5 Anxious, solicitous.

How does rule III. teach you to read?

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN READING MUCH AND KNOWING MUCH.

We should always be careful to get perfectly whatever is given us to learn, and try to understand and remember what we read.

A person may read much, without learning much, or being much wiser for it. It is a great vanity to be desirous of having it to say, that we have read a great many books.

"One book” says Dr. Watts, "read with laborious attention, will tend more to enrich the understanding, than skimming over the surface of twenty authors."

Two children will read the same book; the one will be able to tell you what it contains, but the other will know almost as little about it when he has done, as before he began; and what is the reason of this?

The one reads with attention, and strives to understand and remember what he reads; but the other reads because it is given him to read; he does it like a task which he is desirous to finish, but the contents of which he is not anxious to treasure up in his mind.

QUESTIONS.-1 Can you expect to read well, if you do not understand what you read? 2 What then is necessary in order to understand what you read? 3 What good rule does Dr. Watts give about reading?

LESSON X.

SPELL AND DEFINE.

1 Ancient, old; of former times. 2 Perceiving, observing; knowing by the senses. 3 Panther, a fierce

ferocious quadruped. 4 Pounce, to fall on and seize. 5 Hobgoblin, a frightful apparition. Reality, truth; fact. What does Rule V. direct about reading?

THE MAN AND BOY WHO BECAME FOOLISHLY FRIGHTENED.

I suppose my young friends have often heard of persons being frightened at their own shadows. Perhaps you remember, this was what ailed the ancient war horse, Bu-ceph'alus, while a colt, and that no one could manage him, till young Alexander, perceiving the cause of his alarm, turned his head from his shadow.

Well, I am sorry to say there are many persons among us, who are even sillier than this horse; for they are often frightened at something they form in their own fancy, and then think it to be a terriffic specter.

A person of this sort in the country, was once on his way home, through a piece of woods in the evening, when he heard, as he thought, a hoarse, heavy groan but a few rods from him.

He had been told that there was once a man murdered not far from that place, and as he looked round he thought he saw a poor wounded man just breathing his last, lying partly behind a log by the fence.

Fearing for his own safety, he now fled as for life, till he found himself unhurt in his own house. His family had scarce learned the cause of his fright, when a neighbor was heard knocking at the door.