chamber. His swimming is more like the fluttering of a
butterfly than the steady poise of a fish. Pretty as is his variegated
coat by day, it is far more beautiful by night; then his limbs shine
with metallic lustre, and every joint seems tinged with molten gold.

I could spend the day in showing you my Aquarium;--the merry antics
of the blithe Minnows; the slow wheeling of the less vivacious
Sticklebacks; the beautiful siphon of the Quahaug and the Clam; the
starry disk of the Serpula; the snug tent of the Limpet; the lithe
proboscis of the busy Buccinum; the erect and rapid march of his little
flesh-tinted cousin; the slow Horsefoot, balancing his huge umbrella as
he goes; the----But I cannot name them all.

Neither could you learn to know them at a single visit. Come and sit by
this indoor sea, day by day, and learn to love its people. Many a lesson
for good have they taught me. When weary and disheartened, the patient
perseverance of these undoubting beings has given me new impulses upward
and onward. Remembering that their sole guide is instinct, while mine is
the voice behind me, saying, "This is the way," I have risen with new
resolve to walk therein. Seeing the blind persistency with which some
straying zooephyte has refused to follow other counsel than its own, I
have learned that self-reliance and strength of will are not, in higher
natures, virtues for gratulation, but, if unsanctified, faults to blush
for. Finding each creature here so fitted with organs and instincts for
the life it was meant to lead, I have considered that to me also is
given all that I ought to wish, more than I have ever rightly used.

New evidences are here disclosed to me of God's care for his creation,
deepening my faith in the fact that he is not merely the great First
Cause, but still the watchful Father. New revelations teach me of his
sympathy in our joys, as well as of his care for our necessities. The
Maker's love of the beautiful fills me with gladness, and I catch
new glimpses of those boundless regions where the perfection of his
conceptions has never been marred by sin; and where each of us who
may attain thereto shall find a fitting sphere for every energy, an
answering joy for every pure aspiration.

* * * * *

THE QUEEN OF THE RED CHESSMEN.

The box of chessmen had been left open all night. That was a great
oversight! For everybody knows that the contending chessmen are but too
eag