e had been inflated with hydrogen.

"To your prayers!" cried Alexander the Eighth, and gave the example. The
priesthood resumed its chants, the multitude dropped upon their knees.
Their orisons seemed to speed the ascending figure, which was rising
rapidly, when suddenly appeared in air Luxury, Simony, and Cruelty,
contending which should receive the Holy Father into her bosom. [*] Borgia
struck at them with his crozier, and seemed to be keeping them at bay, when
a cloud wrapped the group from the sight of men. Thunder roared, lightning
glared, the rush of waters blended with the ejaculations of the people and
the yet more tempestuous rushing of the rats. Accompanied as he was, it is
not probable that Alexander passed, like Dante's sigh, "beyond the sphere
that doth all spheres enfold"; but, as he was never again seen on earth, it
is not doubted that he attained at least as far as the moon.

[Footnote:

Per aver riposo
Portato fu fra l'anime beate
Lo spirito di Alessandro glorioso;
Del qual seguiro le sante pedate
Tre sue familiari e care ancelle,
Lussuria, Simonia, e Crudeltate.
[--Machiavelli, _Decennale Primo_.]]

THE REWARDS OF INDUSTRY

In China, under the Tang dynasty, early in the seventh century of the
Christian era, lived a learned and virtuous, but poor mandarin who had
three sons, Fu-su, Tu-sin, and Wang-li. Fu-su and Tu-sin were young men of
active minds, always labouring to find out something new and useful.
Wang-li was clever too, but only in games of skill, in which he attained
great proficiency.

Fu-su and Tu-sin continually talked to each other of the wonderful
inventions they would make when they arrived at man's estate, and of the
wealth and renown they promised themselves thereby. Their conversation
seldom reached the ears of Wang-li, for he rarely lifted his eyes from the
chess-board on which he solved his problems. But their father was more
attentive, and one day he said:

"I fear, my sons, that among your multifarious pursuits and studies you
must have omitted to include that of the laws of your country, or you would
have learned that fortune is not to be acquired by the means which you have
proposed to yourselves."

"How so, father?" asked they.

"It hath been justly deemed by our ancestors," said the old man, "that the
reverence due to the great men who are worshipped in our temples, by
reason of our indebtedness to them for the arts of life, could not but