impart important news. "He's _cleared out_, the
book-agent has,--got all the money he could of folks without giving 'em
any books; and folks say he got some of you. He's been in jail for
playing the same trick before; and folks think he'll be caught this
time."

"Oh, it's a mistake! He'll come back," said Miranda dejectedly, after a
moment's thought.

"Well, he isn't very likely to, because"--here Eben turned his head
aside in embarrassment--"because he's got a wife and family over to
Olneyville."

Radiant delight overspread Miranda's countenance.

"I hope they'll just let him go," she said. "He's welcome to what money
he's got of mine,--more'n welcome." And homeward she went with a light
step.

"Women are queer," mused Eben, as he returned to his fish-cleaning.
"She's lost her beau and her money, and she's tickled to death."

"I declare, you look just as fresh and young and happy as you did
fifteen years ago!" said the widow, with a touch of envy, as they sat
down at the cheerful breakfast-table.

Miranda touched Mrs. Bemis's arm as she came out of the meeting-house
the next Sunday, Ephraim's boys, preternaturally smooth of hair and
shining of face, beside her.

"If it ain't perfane to say it. Mis' Bemis, I feel as if I'd got through
the eye of that needle clear into the kingdom of heaven."

The poor-mistress commented upon the saying in the midst of her numerous
family that night: "She's got that selfish, tempery woman saddled onto
her for life, and she'll work her fingers to the bone for them boys,
that ain't anything to her, and won't be apt to amount to much,--for
there never was one of them Spencers that did,--and she calls that the
kingdom of heaven!"

"It's jest as I always told you," remarked Cap'n 'Kiah placidly. "It's
all owin' to the p'int of view."

SOPHIE SWETT.

* * * * *

THE SECOND RANK.

A ZOOLOGICAL STUDY.

It is a suggestive sign of our naturalistic times that so many
first-class towns in Europe and America contemplate the establishment of
Zoological Gardens. In the United States alone five cities have
successfully executed that project. Travelling menageries have taken the
place of the mediaeval pageants. Natural histories begin to supersede the
ghost-stories of our fathers. The scientific literature of four
different nations has monographs on almost every known species of beasts
and birds.

With such data of information it seems rather