" S.B.A., Edward Liddon Patterson, A.R.C.,
C.C.F., and Bessie P.

They all say pretty much the same thing, which is, that Ancient history
left off about the year A.D. 476, with the fall of the western Roman
Empire; that then came the Middle or Dark Ages; and that the Moderns
began about the year A.D. 1450, or a little while before the discovery
of America. But, of course, if you don't feel quite sure that these
chicks have given correct answers, you'd do well to look farther into
the matter.

THE INCOMPLETE TEXT.

MY DEAR JACK: The letter E is the one to be added to that
church-wall text which you gave to your chicks in May. If this vowel
is set in at the right places, the text will read:

"Persevere, ye perfect men;
Ever keep these precepts ten!"

This refers, of course, to the Ten Commandments that came through
Moses. In a postscript you will find the names of the bright chicks
who sent in the whole text in its complete form. Please give them my
good wishes.--Yours sincerely,

SILAS GREEN.

P.S.--Fred S. Mead, Charles F. Fitts, Mary H. Bradley, Lou D.
Denison, H.J.W., Arnold Guyot Cameron, "Nane," A.R.C., "Daisy,"
Nellie Emerson; Bessie and Charlie Wheeler; Marie Armstrong, Neils
E. Hansen, Katie Burnett, Lucy V. McRill, O.K.H., Bessie Dorsey,
S.C., Edward A. Page, Bessie P.; Gladys H. Wilkinson, of Manchester,
England; and Lane MacGregor.

THE LETTER-BOX.

Boston, Mass., May 2, 1878.

DEAR SAINT NICHOLAS: Will you give me room to rectify a slip of the
pen? My "Sing-away Bird," in your May number, is not a thrush, but a
sparrow; and I ought to be ashamed of the mistake, for I knew he was
a sparrow, and had already spoken of him, in a story in verse,
published three or four years ago, as

"Only a sparrow with a snowy throat."

Not only that, I hear his music every year, when I go into the White
Mountain region, and consider it one of the chief charms of the wild
scenery there. He sang this particular song to me last autumn, on
the banks of the Androscoggin at Berlin Falls.

I ask his pardon and yours for the blunder, and send the stanza as I
have corrected it to make it tell the truth:

'Twas the white-throated sparrow, that sped a light arrow
Of song from his musical quiver;
And the lingering spell slid through every dell
On the