it moved, and rose up with him, and walked with
swift and powerful strides.

"Good heavens!" cried the Soul. "This will never do. This body is far
too big for me; I feel it all loose, and full of cold draughts. I shall
certainly get the rheumatism. And I don't care about these things it is
doing, hewing wood and carrying water for other people. I have made a
mistake; let me correct it before it is too late!" and he crept out.

Going further, he came upon a body sunk in an easy-chair, clad in loose
and easy garb of a man, and by it a table with glasses and bottles: and
the Soul yearned toward it. "Ah!" cried the Soul. "After all, there is
nothing like one's own!" And he crept into the body, and flowed through
and through it; and the body stretched itself with a long, long sigh,
and put its hand out to the bottle, and drank, and chuckled to itself.

"But how about those others who wanted a change?" asked the Soul of the
Angel-who-attends-to-things. "I trust I am not disappointing any of them
in taking up this dear old comfortable body again?"

"Oh no!" said the Angel. "They did not like its looks at all, and
decided to go on to another world."

THE RULER.

When it was time for the Child to have lessons, the Teacher-Angel gave
him a sheet of paper, smooth and white, and a pencil, and a ruler.

"Write as well as you can," he said; "and mind you keep the lines
straight!"

The Child admired the ruler greatly; "I will put it up on the wall," he
said, "where I can see it always." So he put it up on the wall, and the
sunbeams, hardly brighter than itself, sparkled on it.

"It must be pure gold," said the Child; "there is nothing else so
beautiful in the world." And then he began his task.

By and by the lesson time was over, and the Teacher-Angel came to see
what had been done. The Child showed him the paper on which he had
written his task. Up and down went the lines, here and there, from side
to side of the sheet, which was covered with sprawling, straggling
letters. There were smudges, too, where he had tried to rub something
out; it was not a pretty page.

"What is this?" asked the Teacher-Angel. "Where is your ruler?"

"There it is," said the Child. "Up on the wall. It was so beautiful, I
put it up there where I could see it always. See where it hangs! But
methinks it is not so bright as it was."

"No!" said the Teacher-Angel. "It would have been brighter if you had
used it."

"But I admired it gre