effect. In these days, when amongst the superabundant shoals of fiction, it is so difficult to find one you can with confidence leave in the hands of the family of a daughter or a child, it is quite delightful to receive and to read this most innocent and life-like little tale. We must amuse our readers with one of Captain Kittridge's "long bows"

"After supper was over, the Captain was besieged by the children. Little Mara mounted first into his lap, and nestled herself quietly under his coat-Moses and Sally stood at each knee.

"Come, now,' said Moses, 'you said you would tell us about the mermen to-night.'

"Yes, and the mermaids,' said Sally.

the other night in the trundle-bed.'

'Tell them all you told me

"Sally valued herself no little on the score of the Captain's talent

as a romancer.

"You see, Moses,' she said, volubly, 'father saw mermen and mermaids a-plenty of them in the West Indies.'

"Oh, never mind about 'em now,' said Captain Kittridge, looking at Mr. Sewell's corner.

"Why not, father? mother isn't here,' said Sally, innocently.

"A smile passed round the faces of the company, and Mr. Sewell said, 'Come, Captain, no modesty; we all know you have as good a faculty for telling a story as for making a fire.'

"Do tell me what mermen are?' said Moses.

"Wal',' said the Captain, sinking his voice confidentially, and hitching his chair a little around, 'mermen and maids is a kind o’ people that have their world jist like our'n, only it's down in the bottom of the sea, 'cause the bottom of the sea has its mountains and its valleys, and its trees and its bushes, and it stands to reason there should be people there too.'

"Moses opened his broad black eyes wider than usual, and looked absorbed attention.

"Tell 'em about how you saw 'em,' said Sally.

"Wal', yes,' said Captain Kittridge, once when I was to the Bahamas-it was one Sunday morning in June, the first Sunday in the month-we cast anchor pretty nigh a reef of coral, and I was jist a-sittin' down to read my Bible, when up comes a merman over the side of the ship, all dressed as fine as any old beau that ever ye see, with cocked hat and silk stockings, and shoe-buckles, and his clothes was sea-green, and his shoe-buckles shone like diamonds.'

"Do you suppose they were diamonds, really?' said Sally. "Wal', child, I didn't ask him, but I shouldn't be surprised, from all I know of their ways, if they was,' said the Captain, who had now got so wholly into the spirit of his fiction that he no longer felt embarrassed by the minister's presence, nor saw the look of amusement with which he was listening to him in his chimney-corner. But, as I was sayin', he came up to me, and made the politest bow that ever

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ye see, and says he, "Cap'n Kittridge, I presume," and says I, "Yes, sir." "I'm sorry to interrupt your reading," says he; and says I, Oh, no matter, sir." "But," says he, "if you would only be so good as to move your anchor. You've cast anchor right before my front door, and my wife and family can't get out to go to meetin'."

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Why, do they go to meeting in the bottom of the sea?' said Moses.

"Law, bless you sonny, yes. Why, Sunday morning, when the sea was all still, I used to hear the base-viol a-soundin' down under the waters, jist as plain as could be-and psalms and preachin'. I've reason to think there's as many hopefully pious mermaids as there be folks,' said the Captain.

"But,' said Moses, 'you said the anchor was before the front door, so the family could'nt get out-how did the merman get out?'

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"Oh! he got out of the scuttle on the roof,' said the Captain, promptly.

"And did you move your anchor?' said Moses.

Why, child, yes, to be sure I did; he was such a gentleman, I wanted to oblige him-it shows you how important it is always to be polite,' said the Captain, by way of giving a moral turn to his narrative."

And the following little episode in the story may be used by our readers as a parable :

"One of his exploits, however, had very nearly been the means of cutting short the materials of our story in the outset.

"It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and the three women, being busy together with their stitching, had tied a sun-bonnet on little Mara, and turned the two loose upon the beach to pick up shells.

"All was serene, and quiet, and retired, and no possible danger could be apprehended. So up and down they trotted, till the spirit of adventure, which ever burned in the breast of little Moses, caught sight of a small canoe which had been moored just under the shadow of a cedar-covered rock.

"Forthwith he persuaded his little neighbour to go into it, and for a while they made themselves very gay, rocking it from side to side.

"The tide was going out, and each retreating wave washed the boat up and down, till it came into the boy's curly head how beautiful it would be to sail out as he had seen men do-and so, with much puffing and earnest tugging of his little brown hands, the boat at last was loosed from her moorings and pushed out on the tide, when both children laughed gaily to find themselves swinging and balancing on the amber surface, and watching the rings and sparkles of sunshine and the white pebbles below. Little Moses was glorious-his adventures had begun-and with a fairy princess in his boat, he was going to stretch away to some of the islands of dream-land. He persuaded Mara to give him her pink sun-bonnet, which he placed for a pennon on a

stick at the end of the boat, while he made a vehement dashing with another, first on one side of the boat and then on the other-spattering the water in diamond showers, to the infinite amusement of the little maiden.

"Meanwhile, the tide waves danced them out and still outward, and as they went further and further from shore, the more glorious felt the boy. He had got Mara all to himself, and was going away with her from all grown people, who wouldn't let children do as they pleased who made them sit still in prayer-time, and took them to meeting, and kept so many things which they must not touch, or open, or play with. Two white sea-gulls came flying toward the children, and they stretched their little arms in welcome, nothing doubting but these fair creatures were coming at once to take passage with them for fairy-land. But the birds only dived, and shifted, and veered, turning their silvery sides toward the sun, and careering in circles round the children. A brisk little breeze, that came hurrying down from the land, seemed disposed to favour their unsubstantial enterprizefor your winds, being a fanciful, uncertain tribe of people, are always for falling in with anything that is contrary to common sense. So the wind trolled them merrily along, nothing doubting but there might be time, if they hurried, to land their boat on the shore of some of the low-banked red clouds that lay in the sunset, where they could pick up shells-blue, and pink, and purple-enough to make them rich for life. The children were all excitement at the rapidity with which their little bark danced and rocked, as it floated outward to the broad, open ocean-at the blue, freshening waves, at the silver-glancing gulls, at the floating, white-winged ships, and at vague expectations of going rapidly somewhere, to something more beautiful still. And what is the happiness of the brightest hours of grown people more

than this?

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Roxy,' said Aunt Ruey, innocently, 'seems to me I haven't heard nothin' o' them children lately. They're so still, I'm 'fraid there's some mischief.'

"Well, Ruey, you jist go and give a look at 'em,' said Miss Roxy. 'I declare, that boy! I never know what he will do next; but there didn't seem to be nothin' to get into out there but the sea, and the beach is so shelving, a body can't well fall into that.'

"Alas! good Miss Roxy, the children are at this moment tilting up and down on the waves, half-a-mile out to sea, as airily happy as the sea-gulls; and little Moses now thinks, with glorious scorn, of you and your press-board, as of grim shadows of restraint and bondage that shall never darken his free life more.

"Both Miss Roxy and Mrs. Pennel were, however, startled into a paroxysm of alarm when poor Miss Ruey came screaming, as she entered the door,

"As sure as you'r alive, them chil'en are off in the boat-they 'r' out to sea, sure as I'm alive! What shall we do? The boat 'll upset, and the sharks'll get 'em.'

"Miss Roxy ran to the window, and saw, dancing and curtseying on the blue waves, the little pinnance, with its fanciful pink pennon fluttered gaily by the indiscreet and flattering wind.

"Poor Mrs. Pennel ran to the shore, and stretched her arms wildly, as if she would have followed them across the treacherous blue floor that heaved and sparkled between them.

"Oh, Mara, Mara! oh, my poor little girl! oh, poor children!' "Well, if ever I see such a young un as that,' soliloquised Miss Roxy, from the chamber window; there they be, dancin' and giggiting about-they'll have the boat upset in a minit, and the sharks are waitin' for 'em, no doubt. I b'lieve that are young un's helped by the Evil One-not a boat round, else I'd push off after 'em. Well, I don't see but we must trust in the Lord-there don't seem to be much else to trust to,' said the spinster, as she drew her head in grimly.

"To say the truth, there was some reason for the terror of these most fearful suggestions; for not far from the place where the children embarked was Zephaniah's fish-drying ground, and multitudes of sharks came up with every rising tide, allured by the offal that was here constantly thrown into the sea. Two of these prowlers, outwardbound from their quest, were even now assiduously attending the little boat, and the children derived no small amusement from watching their motions in the pellucid water-the boy occasionally almost upsetting the boat by valorous plunges at them with his stick. It was the most exhilarating and piquant entertainment he had found for many a day; and little Mara laughed in chorus at every lunge that he made.

"What would have been the end of it all it is difficult to say, had not some mortal power interfered before they had sailed finally away into the sunset.

"But it so happened on this very afternoon, Rev. Mr. Sewell was out in a boat, busy in the very apostolic employment of catching fish, and looking up from one of the contemplative pauses which his occupation induced, he rubbed his eyes at the apparition which presented itself.

"A tiny little shell of a boat came drifting toward him, in which was a black-eyed boy, with cheeks like a pomegranate, and lustrous tendrils of silky dark hair, and a little golden-haired girl, white as a water lily, and looking ethereal enough to have risen out of the seafoam. Both were in the very sparkle and effervescence of that fanciful glee which bubbles up from the golden, untried fountains of early childhood.

"Mr. Sewell, at a glance, comprehended the whole, and at once overhauling the tiny craft, he broke the spell of fairy-land, and constrained the little people to return to the confines, dull and dreary, of real and actual life.

"Neither of them had known a doubt or a fear in that joyous trance of forbidden pleasure, which shadowed with so many fears the wiser and more far-seeing heads and hearts of the grown people; nor was

there enough language yet in common between the two classes to make the little ones comprehend the risk they had run.

"Perhaps so do our elder brothers, in our Father's house, look anxiously out when we are sailing gaily over life's sea-over unknown depths-amid threatening monsters-but want words to tell us why what seems so bright is so dangerous."

VII.

THE NEAR AND THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS.

THIS is just the volume for Sabbath afternoons in a Christian family-it is a book for the doubting and the bereaved. We are not disposed to take any exceptions to a work which has charmed us so much; else we might say it is a little too French in its style-something too much of Chateaubriand and Lamartine, and, compared with the intention of the story, the length of natural description sometimes seems disproportionate; but, then the descriptions are delicious; it is true they are conveyed rather in the manner of a painter than a poet. Here is a picture of a village :

"The goats were just setting out for the mountains; little boys driving them along the wood-paths; you could hear their bells; a kid, perched in the middle of a bush, gave a startled glance at the grand procession, then returned eagerly to nibble the young shoots about him. The peasants were all at work in the country; the village was deserted.

"How charming a village is how charming those fountains, with wooden basins! if the village be rich, with stone ones, with the water trickling down and running over.

"In the evening, the cows come heavily by, drink slowly, and return to their stalls, scattering sparkling drops from their cool, wet muzzles. The pleasant smell of hay is wafted from the open barns. Women come and go, and wash vegetables at the fountain; men, seated before their houses, sharpen their scythes, and fill the air with metallic notes; children sing and dabble and heap up handfuls of fine sand; hens seek their food with that little, anxious, monotonous cluck, that protest of a good housewife, who sighs each time she puts by a

The Near and the Heavenly Horizons. By Madame de Gasparin. Alexander Strahan and Co., Edinburgh.