asket there is bread for you all. Take a loaf, each of you, and
come back every day at this hour, till it shall please God to send us
better times."

Then he left the children to themselves and went into the house, but
watched them through the window. The hungry children seized the
basket, quarreled and struggled for the bread, because each of them
wished to get the best and largest loaf. Then they went away without
ever thanking the good gentleman for his kindness.

But one little girl, named Gretchen, poorly but neatly dressed,
remained, humbly standing by, till the rest were gone. Then she took
the last loaf left in the basket, the smallest of the lot. She looked
up to the window where the gentleman stood; smiled at him; threw him
a kiss, and made a low curtsey in token of her gratitude, and then
went quickly home.

The next day the other children were just as ill-behaved as they had
been before, and the timid humble Gretchen received a loaf this time
not more than half the size of the one she had on the previous day.
But when she came home, and her poor sick mother cut the loaf open, a
number of new silver pieces of money, fell rattling and shining out
of it.

Her mother was frightened, and said, "Take the money back at once to
the good gentleman; for it must certainly have dropped into the dough
by accident. Be quick Gretchen! be quick!"

But when the little girl came to the good man and gave him her
mother's message, he kindly said, "No, no, my child, it was no
mistake. I had the silver pieces put into the smallest loaf as a
reward for you. Continue to be as humble, peaceable, self-denying,
and grateful as you have now shown yourself to be. A little girl who
is humble enough to take the smallest loaf rather than quarrel for
the larger ones, will be sure to receive greater blessings from God
than if she had silver pieces of money baked in every loaf of bread
she ate. Go home now, and greet your good mother very kindly for me."
Here we see how God's blessing attends the humble.

"Humility Proving a Blessing." Some time ago a young man went into
the office of one of the largest dry-goods houses in New York and
asked for a situation. He was told to call again another day.

Going down Broadway that same afternoon, when opposite the Astor
House, he saw an old apple woman, in trying to cross the street,
struck by an omnibus, knocked down, and her basket of apples sent
scattering into the gutter.

The young man