they have passed together.--_Dr. Johnson._

A RARE COMPANION.--She whom you can treat with unreserved familiarity,
at the same time preserving your dignity and her respect, is a rare
companion, and her acquaintance should be cultivated.

THINGS OF VALUE.

What shines and glitters has its birth
But for the present hour alone;
The real--the thing of truth and worth--
To all posterity goes down.

_--Goethe._

BEETHOVEN IN GERMANY.--When the German talks of symphonies he means
Beethoven; the two names are to him one and indivisible; his joy, his
pride. As Italy has its Naples, France its Revolution, England its
Navigation, so Germany has its Beethoven symphonies. The German forgets
in his Beethoven that he has no school of painting; with Beethoven he
imagines that he has again won the battles that he lost under Napoleon;
he even dares to place him on a level with Shakespeare.--_Robert
Schumann._

A NEW USE FOR A DOG.--A farmer's daughter in the West of England
received a hairy poodle dog from a friend in town. The unsophisticated
damsel wrote back thanking her friend for the present, and saying that
she found it very handy, when tied to a stick, to clean windows with.

THE WORST OF SUCCESS.--She that has never known adversity is but half
acquainted with others or with herself. Constant success shows us but
one side of the world, for, as it surrounds us with friends who will
tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we
can learn our defects.

RIGHTS AND DUTIES.--There is no right without its duties, and no duty
without its rights.

MERLE'S CRUSADE.

BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY, Author of "Aunt Diana," "For Lilias," etc.

CHAPTER IV.

MERLE'S LAST EVENING AT HOME.

"So it is all settled, Merle."

"Yes, Aunt Agatha," I returned, briskly, for she spoke in a lugubrious
voice, and as one sad face is enough beside the family hearth, I assumed
a tolerably cheerful aspect. If only Aunt Agatha's eyes would not look
at me so tenderly!

"Poor child!" she sighed; and then, as I remained silent, she continued
in a few minutes, "I wish I could reconcile myself more to the idea, but
I cannot help feeling a presentiment that you will live to repent this
strange step you are taking."

I found this speech a little damping, but I bore it without flinching.
One can never set out down some new road without a few friendly missiles
flying about one's ears.