"I know it all, John," said Aunt Martha, the tears gushing from her pitying eyes. "How you must have suffered, my dear, dear boy! The squire's daughter and niece were here at three o'clock this morning. They thought you might be worried a good deal about it. The squire will be all right in a few days."
Without a word, John laid his tired head on Aunt Martha's motherly bosom and wept like a child. So pillowed, he fell asleep, as he had done so many a time in years gone by.
John Hampden learned a lesson that night which he never forgot. He is twice eighteen years old now, and his life has brought him much honor and prosperity.
If he has one fault, people say, it is that he is almost too inflexibly exact in all his dealings—almost too conscientious and fearful lest he should make a mistake, and so do another an injury, however slight. But, they add, the world would be a happier place if more people were like him in this respect.
—For several years a pair of storks built their nest annually in the park of the Castle Ruheleben, in Berlin. A few years ago one of the servants placed a ring, with the name of the place and date, on the leg of the male bird, in order to be certain that the same bird returned each year. Last spring the stork came back to its customary place, the bearer of two rings. The second one bore the inscription: "India sends greetings to Germany."
[RIGGING AND RIGS.]
BY W. J. GORDON.
Though steam is now the pride of the ocean, there are a few points in which its advantages over sail have not been great enough to crowd out the clippers, and in long voyages the sailing ship is far from obsolete.