d it
and started home.

But the old woman called her back and said: "Daughter, you have helped
one who is able to repay you for your kindness. Every word you speak
shall be a pearl or a rose." The girl hastened home. Her mother met her
with scolding words, asking her why she had been so long. And when her
daughter explained to her, lo! every word she spoke was a pearl or a
rose. The greedy old woman snatched up the pearls and left the roses.

Then she called her other daughter,--the ugly one,--told her what had
happened, and said: "Hasten, daughter! Take the silver pitcher and run
to the fountain. If the fairy has given these for a drink from a jug,
what will she give for a drink from a silver pitcher!"

The girl sulked off to the fountain swinging the pitcher and loitering
along the way. When she reached there no old woman was in sight, but
beside the spring was a tall, beautiful young woman who asked her for a
drink. The ugly one replied, "There is the pitcher, draw the water for
yourself."

When she was about to go, the young woman said sharply: "Stop! the words
that fall from your lips are evil things, and they shall look like the
things they are. Every word you speak shall be a spider or a snake,
until you learn to speak kindly."

The girl trudged off home scarcely thinking about what the woman said,
little knowing that it was the same fairy who had spoken to her sister.
But when she began to answer her mother, spiders and snakes dropped from
her lips, and she was very much frightened.

I wonder whether our words would be pearls or spiders if we could see
them? Let us make them pearls.

SUFFOCATED TREES

We sometimes hear of people being suffocated by gas, but it is not often
we hear of trees being suffocated.

But the other day I was walking down the street, and noticed that all
the trees on one side of the avenue for several blocks were dead. They
looked as if they had been fine, strong, healthy trees, and I could not
understand why they had all died, until I was told that a gas-pipe
beneath their roots had leaked, and that the escaping gas had killed the
trees.

I am sure you and I know people who are like those dead trees: they have
become discouraged and wilted, and if you and I could dig down into
their lives we should probably find something like that poisonous gas
which has ruined them.

Sin is the most poisonous thing that gets into one's life.

If a boy or girl has done wrong and i