out to relate. It may be familiar to many of our readers.
We venture, however, to repeat it in our own words, as it has an
important moral worthy the attention of the old as well as the young:--

A man and his wife were hard at work in a forest, cutting down trees.
The trees were very hardy and tall, and their axes were dull; the
weather was cold and dreary, they were but poorly clad, and they had but
little to eat.

At length, the woman, in her despondency, fell to crying. Her husband
very kindly inquired, "What is the matter, my dear wife?"

"I have been thinking," said she, "of our hard fate, and it does seem to
me a hard case that God should curse the ground for Adam's sake, just
because he and his wife had eaten a green apple; and now all their
descendants must earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, all their
days."

The man replied, "Do not, my dear wife, distress yourself thus, seeing
it will do no good."

She continued, "I do think that Adam and Eve were very foolish to listen
to any thing that a serpent had to say. If I had been in the place of
Eve I am sure I should have done otherwise."

To this her husband replied, "True, my dear wife, Eve was a very silly
woman. I think, if I had been in Adam's place, before I would have
listened to her foolish advice, and run such a hazard, I would have
given her a smart box on the ear, and told her to hold her tongue, and
to mind her own business."

This remark made his wife very angry, and here followed a long dialogue
on this topic till they began mutually to criminate each other as well
as the serpent.

Now, a gentleman, who had all this time been concealed behind the trees,
and had heard their complaints, and listened with grief to their
fault-finding disposition, came forward and spoke to them very kindly.

He said, "My friends, you seem to be hard at work, and very unhappy.
Pray tell me the cause of your misery, and whether I can do anything to
comfort you?"

So they repeated to this gentleman what they had been saying.

He replied to them thus: "Now, my dear friends, I am truly sorry for
you, and I desire to make you more comfortable. I have a large estate,
and I wish to make others as happy as I am myself. I have a fine house,
plenty of servants, and every thing desirable to eat and to drink. I
have fine grounds, filled with shrubbery and fruit trees. If you will go
and live with me you have only to obey the regulations of my house, and
as long