laimed a bystander.

"I," said the one-eyed hostler, "am the very man who warn't eaten by the
bear when I was a baby!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

RECONCILIATION.

We crown the unconscious brew with wreath of bays
We press in pulseless hands the sweetest flowers.
When all unneeded any grace of ours
We find a voice for all the loving praise
For which, perhaps, through weary, unblessed days
The heart had hungered. We are slow to prove
The tenderness we feel, till some dark day
We can do naught but bow our head and pray
That Heaven may teach us how to show our love.
May it not be that on the other side
They wait for us, and, like us, long to make
The sad wrongs right, ready to give and take
The hand-clasps and the kisses here denied?
Carlotta Perry.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the Companion.
CUSPADORES.

There is probably no human weakness that awakens more derisive contempt
than a false assumption of superior knowledge. The vanity of young
people frequently leads them into ludicrous positions, and sometimes
even into serious difficulties, through a pretence of knowing things of
which they are really ignorant. The experience of one of my young
friends is a case in point.

Silvia Morden is a girl of sixteen. She is both bright and pretty. Her
worst fault was the one I have mentioned,--a most ridiculous mania for
wishing to appear well acquainted with all subjects.

The flattery of her companions at Miss Hall's "Young Ladies' Academy" no
doubt had something to do with this folly; for she was generous, end a
great favorite with her schoolmates. It often led her into difficulties,
as falsehood in any form always does, and Silvia was really becoming a
confirmed liar when the little episode I am about to relate, checked her
on the very brink of the precipice.

The craze for "high art decorations" had spread from the great city
centres to the country town of Atwood, where Silvia's parents lived. Of
course every one understands that "high art" becomes very much diluted
in its country progress, and when it appears in out-of-the-way places,
where the people are neither wealthy nor well read, it is apt to
degenerate into very _low_ art, indeed.

But the Atwood girls did what they could to follow the fashions. Old
ginger-jars were dragged down, covered with paint, and pasted over with
beetles, and birds, and flowers, i