in the ray of the clear autumn moon,
And the light of the watch-fires gleaming.
A tremulous sigh from the gentle night wind
Through the forest leaves slowly is creeping,
While the stars up above, with their glittering eyes,
Keep watch while the army is sleeping.

There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread,
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
And thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed
Far away in the hut on the mountain.
His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle with memories tender,
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep,
For their mother,--may heaven defend her!

The moon seems to shine as serenely as then,
That night when the love, yet unspoken,
Lingered long on his lips, and when low-murmured vows
Were pledged, never more to be broken.
Then, drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes the tears that are welling,
And gathers his gun closer up to its place,
As if to keep down the heart-swelling.

He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree--
The footstep is lagging and weary;
Yet onward he glides through the broad belt of light,
Towards the shade of a forest so dreary.
Hark! Was it the night wind that rustled the leaves?
Is it moonlight so suddenly flashing?
It looked like a rifle-- "Ha, Mary, good-night!"
His life-blood is ebbing and dashing.

All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
No sound save the rush of the river;
But the dew falls unseen on the face of the dead--
The picket's off duty forever.

_Ethel L. Beers_.

LESSON LXI

WAGES

Wages are a compensation given to the laborer for the exertion of his
physical powers, or of his skill and ingenuity. They must, therefore,
vary according to the severity of the labor to be performed, or to the
degree of skill and ingenuity required. A jeweller or engraver, for
example, must be paid a higher rate of wages than a servant or laborer.
A long course of training is necessary to instruct a man in the
business of jewelling or engraving, and if the cost of his training
were not made up to him in a higher rate of wages, he would, instead of
learning so difficult an art, betake himself to such employments as
require hardly any instruction.

A skilled mason, who has served a long apprenticeship to his trade,
will always obtain higher wages than a common laborer, who has simply
to use his mere bo