y well enough. Horses and dogs seldom lose
their way, unless they are very far from home.

Arthur's parents were frightened at their little boy's long absence,
and he was not allowed to ride again for three days, for he had been
told not to go out of the field in which he was when he saw the
hunters.

[Illustration: ARTHUR ON HIS PONY.]

Arthur rode that pony until he became quite a big boy, and his feet
nearly touched the ground as he sat in the saddle. Then he gave the
good little animal to a young cousin.

But he never liked any horse so much as this pony, which was his own,
real horse, when he was such a little boy.

YOUNG CONTRIBUTORS' DEPARTMENT.

[Illustration: TWO YOUNG MARTYRS.
(Drawn by a Young-Contributor.)]

"TOO-LOO!"

The Blue Jay courted the Yellow Cuckoo;
'Neath its nest he would stay all day long,
Smoothing his feathers of silver and blue,
Telling his love in a song:
"Too-loo! too-loo!
Oh, fly with me,
My sweet Cuckoo,
Across the sea!"

The Cuckoo came gayly forth from her nest;
But just then an arrow flew by,
Piercing the bird's soft yellow breast,
Who died with a single sigh.
"Too-loo! too-loo!"
The Blue Jay said;
"What shall I do?
My love is dead!"

The Cuckoo lay cold and still on the ground--
Dead, past all help to save;
And by a Bird-defender was found,
Who dug her a little grave.
"Too-loo! too-loo!"
Was the sorrowful lay,
For the gentle Cuckoo
Sung by the Jay.

AMY R.

"MARY AND HER LAMB."

(_A Critique._)

"Mary had a little lamb."

In this poem each stanza, we may say each line, is unalloyed gold. Let
us examine the first line.

"Mary." The name strikes us at once as belonging to one pure as the
inside of an apple-bloom; and the rest of the poem assures us, that by
making Mary's name an index to Mary's character, we have not been
misled. A master's hand is visible from the first word.

"A little lamb." The poet does not take for granted, as one of less
genius would, that because a lamb is mentioned the reader necessarily
sees in his mind's eye one of the frolicsome, gentle, confiding
creatures commonly accepted as an emblem of meekness. Not at all. The
lamb is not only a lamb--it is a _little_ lamb. Thus never in the whole
course of the poem can we by any oversight look upon Mary's treasure as
a sheep; it retains its infanti