"I've been to a day school too," said Alice. "You needn't be so proud as all that!"

3. "With extras?" asked the Mock Turtle, a little. anxiously.

"Yes," said Alice; "we learned French and music." "And washing?" said the Mock Turtle.

"Certainly not!" said Alice, indignantly.

"Ah! then yours wasn't a really good school," said the Mock Turtle, in a tone of great relief. "Now, at ours, they had, at the end of the bill, 'French, music, and washing, extra!'"

4. "You couldn't have needed it much," said Alice, "living at the bottom of the sea."

"I couldn't afford to learn it," said the Mock Turtle, with a sigh. "I only took the regular course.”

"What was that?" inquired Alice.

"Reeling and writhing, of course, to begin with," the Mock Turtle replied; "then the different branches of arithmetic-ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision."

5. "What else did you learn?"

"Well, there was mystery," the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers-"mystery, ancient and modern, with seaography; then drawling. The drawling master was an old conger eel, that used to come once a week; he taught us drawling, stretching, and fainting in coils."

6. "What was that like?" said Alice.

"Well, I can't show it you myself," the Mock Turtle said; "I'm too stiff, and the Gryphon never learned it." "Hadn't time," said the Gryphon, in a low, gruff voice. "I went to the classical master, though he was an old crab, he was."

"I never went to him," the Mock Turtle said, with a sigh; "he taught laughing and grief, they used to say.”

"So he did! so he did!" said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn; and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.

7. "And how many hours a day did you do lessons?" said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.

"Ten hours the first day," said the Mock Turtle, "nine the next, and so on."

"What a curious plan!" exclaimed Alice.

"That's the reason they're called lessons," the Gryphon remarked—“because they lessen from day to day."

8. This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little before she made her next remark.

"Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday." "Of course it was!" said the Mock Turtle.

"And how did you manage on the twelfth?" Alice went on, eagerly.

9. "That's enough about lessons," the Gryphon interrupted, in a very decided tone. “Tell her something

"Oh! a song, please-if the Mock Turtle would be so kind," Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone:

"H'm! no accounting for tastes! Sing her 'Turtle Soup'-will you, old fellow?"

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked with sobs, to sing the song commencing:

"Beautiful soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!"

Lewis Carroll.

FOR PREPARATION.-I. From "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," Chapters IX. and X. "Mock-turtle soup" is made from veal, instead of real turtle. The humor of this piece consists partly in introducing an animal shaped like a turtle, but having a calf's head, hind legs, and tail, instead of a turtle's head, flippers, and tail.

II. Tôr'-toise (-tis), be-liēve', re-lief', wrīth'-ing (rīth'-), ān'-cient (-shent), Gryph'-on.

III. Would you say, Dare to write, or, Dare write?-Bid him to come, or, Bid him come ?-Let him to go, or, Let him go? Correct the following: Make him to write"; "I heard him to call"; "See him to write"; "Feel the pulse to beat"; "I wish him go"; "It is best walk"; "We had better to walk."

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V. "Tortoise (pronounced tôr'tis) . . . taught us!" (this pun is worthy of a mock turtle). "Mystery" (for history). 'Drawling, stretching, and fainting in coils" (drawing, sketching, and painting in oils). "Laughing and grief" (Latin and Greek). "Beautiful Soup" (sung to the tune of "Star of the Evening, Beautiful Star," gives frequent opportunity for the "voice choked with sobs to relieve itself). The following is the first verse of this song as sung by the Mock Turtle:

"Beautiful soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen !

Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!

Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!

Beau-oo-tiful soo-oop!

Beau-oo-tiful soo-oop!

Soo-oop of the e-e-evening,

Beautiful, beautiful soup!"

CXIII. EVENING.

1. Day hath put on his jacket, and around
His burning bosom buttoned it with stars.
Here will I lay me on the velvet grass,
That is like padding to earth's meager ribs,
And hold communion with the things about me.

Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid

That binds the skirt of Night's descending robe!
The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads,
Do make a music like to rustling satin,

As the light breezes smooth their downy nap.

2. Ha! what is this that rises to my touch,
So like a cushion? Can it be a cabbage?
It is! it is that deeply injured flower,

Which boys do flout us with; but yet I love thee,
Thou giant rose wrapped in a green surtout!
Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright
As these, thy puny brethren; and thy breath
Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air;
But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau,
Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences,
And growing portly in his sober garments.

3. Is that a swan, that rides upon the water?
Oh, no! it is that other gentle bird,

Which is the patron of our noble calling.
I well remember, in my early years,

When these young hands first closed upon a goose;
I have a scar upon my thimble finger,

Which chronicles the hour of young ambition.
My father was a tailor, and his father,

And my sire's grandsire-all of them were tailors.
They had an ancient goose; it was. an heirloom
From some remoter tailor of our race.

It happened I did see it on a time

When none was near, and I did deal with it,
And it did burn me, oh, most fearfully!

4. It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs,
And leap elastic from the level counter,

Leaving the petty grievances of earth,

The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears,
And all the needles that do wound the spirit,
For such a pensive hour of soothing silence.
Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress,
Lays bare her shady bosom. I can feel
With all around me; I can hail the flowers
That sprig earth's green mantle; and yon quiet bird,
That rides the stream, is to me as a brother.
The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets
Where Nature stows away her loveliness.
But this unnatural posture of the legs
Cramps my extended calves, and I must go
Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

FOR PREPARATION.-I. What other pieces of this author have you read? (LIV.) Were they humorous, or serious? Note the character of wit that turns on two meanings of the same word (ambiguity), and that which turns on a non-agreement between intention and accomplishment (the antics of a drunkard, or a weak-headed man). This piece represents a tailor writing a poem on Evening, and drawing all of his poetic figures from the objects familiar to his vocation. Whereas poetry should use figures that ennoble the subject by relieving it of narrow limitations and vulgar associations, to connect it with the instruments of a trade or appliances of an industry is to rob it entirely of the ideal element which poetry should have. The effect of such an attempt is shown in this poem with the happiest strokes of humor. Of course any other trade or occupation would do as well as that of the tailor for an illustration of the absurdity of drawing poetic imagery from it.

II. Mea'-ger, eom-mūn'-ion, eush'-ion (koosh'un), hūeş, ĕs'-sen-çeş, ehrŏn'-i-eleş (krŎn'i-klz), tāi'-lorg, an'-cient (-shent), straight'-en (strāt'n), griev'-an-çeş.

III. Explain th for s in hath ;--'s in earth's, and s in ribs ;-" about me," instead of "about I";-their threads for they threads;-deeply injured for deep injured;-us for we;-thee for thou.

IV. Quivering, downy nap," injured, flout, surtout, gaudy, portly, patron, ambition, race, elastic, petty, din, pensive.