gates discussed the matter in
groups and small circles, and a few days afterward a Maryland delegate
formally nominated George Washington to be Commander-in-Chief of the
American Army. He was unanimously elected, but the honor of bringing him
distinctly before the Congress belongs to John Adams. It seems now a
very natural thing to do, but really it was something which required
wisdom and courage. When one sums up all Washington's military
experience at this time, it was not great, or such as to point him out
as unmistakably the leader of the American army. There was a general
then in command at Cambridge, who had seen more of war than Washington
had. But Washington was the leading military man in Virginia, and it was
for this reason that John Adams, as a New England man, urged his
election. The Congress had done something to bring the colonies
together; the war was to do more, but probably no single act really had
a more far-reaching significance in making the Union, than the act of
nominating the Virginian Washington by the New England Adams.

(_To be continued._)

Spring Beauties.

BY HELEN GRAY CONE.

The Puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church;
A Thrush, white-breasted, o'er them sat singing on his perch.
"Happy be! for fair are ye!" the gentle singer told them.
But presently a buff-coat Bee came booming up to scold them.
"Vanity, oh, vanity!
Young maids, beware of vanity!"
Grumbled out the buff-coat Bee,
Half parson-like, half soldierly.

The sweet-faced maidens trembled, with pretty, pinky blushes,
Convinced that it was wicked to listen to the Thrushes;
And when, that shady afternoon, I chanced that way to pass,
They hung their little bonnets down and looked into the grass.
All because the buff-coat Bee
Lectured them so solemnly:--
"Vanity, oh, vanity!
Young maids, beware of vanity!"

[Illustration]

HOW CONRAD LOST HIS SCHOOL-BOOKS.

BY WALTER BOBBETT.

Conrad was not a prince, not even a lord; he was only an ordinary boy.
He should have been on his way to school; but, having a talent for doing
nothing, he was wandering about the fields and little strips of
woodland, amusing himself by watching the birds skim through the air. He
had lately been reading a volume of fairy-tales, and as he walked along
he began to wonder whether there really was a bit of truth in any of
them.

[Illustration: "HE BECKONED