garment of iron or steel worn by warriors in olden
times.

BEVIES, flocks or companies.

SHEEN, brightness.

TCHICK a combination of letters whose pronunciation is supposed to
resemble the sound of breaking glass.

What did Jack Frost do when he went to the mountain?

How did he dress the boughs of the trees? What did he spread over the
lake? Why?

What could be seen after he had worked on "the windows of those who
slept?"

What mischief did he do in the cupboard, and why?

Is Jack Frost an artist? In what kind of weather does he work? Why does
he work generally at night?

* * * * *

_50_

re' al ize
pen' du lum
dil' i gent ly
sig nif' i cance
auc tion eer'
per sist' ent ly
in ex haust' i ble
un der stood'
hope' less ly
nev er the less

"GOING! GOING! GONE!"

The other day, as I was walking through a side street in one of our
large cities, I heard these words ringing out from a room so crowded
with people that I could but just see the auctioneer's face and uplifted
hammer above the heads of the crowd.

"Going! Going! Going! Gone!" and down came the hammer with a sharp rap.

I do not know how or why it was, but the words struck me with a new
force and significance. I had heard them hundreds of times before, with
only a sense of amusement. This time they sounded solemn.

"Going! Going! Gone!"

"That is the way it is with life," I said to myself;--"with time." This
world is a sort of auction-room; we do not know that we are buyers: we
are, in fact, more like beggars; we have brought no money to exchange
for precious minutes, hours, days, or years; they are given to us. There
is no calling out of terms, no noisy auctioneer, no hammer; but
nevertheless, the time is "going! going! gone!"

The more I thought of it, the more solemn did the words sound, and the
more did they seem to me a good motto to remind one of the value of
time.

When we are young we think old people are preaching and prosing when
they say so much about it,--when they declare so often that days, weeks,
even years, are short. I can remember when a holiday, a whole day long,
appeared to me an almost inexhaustible play-spell; when one afternoon,
even, seemed an endless round of pleasure, and the week that was to come
seemed longer than does a whole year now.

One needs to live many years before one learns how little time there is
in a year,--how little, indeed, there will be eve