'Of course,' said the boy eagerly, 'I have heard of the St. Bernard monks, and their hospital and their dogs, and how they dig travellers out of the snow, and so on; but what are refuges, please? I never heard of them.'
'They are also shelters for travellers, a sort of off-shoot from the parent-house at the top of the Pass. It is fifteen miles from the valley to the Hospice, and in winter-time the road is often blocked by snow, and if it were not for these refuge houses, where food and warmth is freely given to all comers, many a poor traveller would perish in the snow.'
Napoleon's fame will have to live without the help of the great road which he built to keep it alive. Though many obstacles have been met with, including a break-down caused by an underground spring, when there were only a few yards between the borings from each end, the tunnel is at last practically finished, and it is hoped that in 1905, a hundred years after Napoleon made his road, it will be open for railway traffic.
S. C.
THE BAT AND THE BALL.
'm quite knocked up!' exclaimed the Ball,
While mounting to the skies;
'I know I shall have such a fall
After this dreadful rise.
I speak no ill of any one,
However they provoke,
But many things the Bat has done
Are something past a joke.'
'Just watch that Ball, how high he goes,'
The Bat exclaimed with glee,
'But yet he never says he owes
His rise in life to me.
No, no, that's not his way at all;
And though I do my best,
His graceless growls at every fall
Are something past a jest.'