nd a very strong, sweet
scent.

SOWING AND REAPING.

The day had really been very sultry, and it was not to be wondered at
that Miss Allan had not explained the lesson quite so clearly as she
generally did. The children, too, had been troubled by the heat, and let
their attention wander, so that a few of them went home with very vague
ideas about spring-time and harvest, sowing and reaping, planting and
watering. Ella and Willie Hope especially had their heads full of ideas
which would have greatly surprised any farmer had he heard them.

'Dead things become alive in the earth,' said Ella.

'Little things grow big underground,' declared Willie.

One thing turns into many if we bury it,' continued Ella.

They walked on in silence for some time, then Ella's face began to
shine. 'Just think, Willie,' exclaimed she, eagerly, 'if I bury my doll,
it may turn into a real baby.'

'Yes,' assented the boy, 'and if I bury my box of tin soldiers, before
long I shall have a regiment of strong men to fight the Russians with.'

'And--who knows?--if Mother were to give us her purse, we might make a
whole tree of sovereigns grow! How happy Mother would be if she could
have money without Father tiring himself so much to gain it!'

A moment's pause to enjoy the thought of such happiness, and then Willie
remarked, a little doubtfully, 'Ella, don't you think that if it were so
easy to make live soldiers and trees of gold grow up, people would have
thought of it before now? I don't understand why nobody has ever tried.'

Ella wrinkled her brow, and looked very serious indeed. The remark was
not to be slighted, and yet she felt quite sure that no real objection
could be made to the conclusion at which they had arrived. Indeed, her
brow soon cleared again, and, turning to her brother with a triumphant
air, she exclaimed, 'Now I know! Of course, if we have ideas that other
people never think of, it means we are _geniuses_! Most people never
think of the plainest things till some genius has done so, and then it
all seems so easy. I remember what Miss Allan said when she told us the
story of Christopher Columbus. Any one could have taken a ship and
sailed away to Africa---- '

'America,' murmured Willie, timidly.

'Well, America, then; it's all the same,' went on Ella, with an
impatient shrug of her shoulder. 'But nobody did. There were no
geniuses except Columbus, and he thought, "People are stupid not to go
to America, but