"But," added honest little Mary, "she did not seem very glad to have us."
"Children," said I, "there are several objections to surprise parties. People who wish to give parties usually prefer to name the time and select their guests themselves. It may be very inconvenient to a little girl's mother to have her house seized by a merry set of young folks, who enter it for the purpose of having a good time. The parents who are to provide lemon, sugar, and cake, or to supply the young gentlemen with pocket-money, may not wish to have their money or their goods used in that way. And, as a rule, gay evening parties, surprise or otherwise, interfere seriously with school duties, and therefore are not precisely the right things for boys and girls.
"Still, if you must surprise any one, Aunt Marjorie would advise you to politely decline these invitations, and look about for the poorest and neediest person you can find. Take the sugar, the lemons, the bread, the ham, and the little packets of pocket-money, put them safely in a basket, and set them down at the door of the crippled girl, or the lonely boy whose mother and father are dead. You will enjoy such a surprise party for months after it is over."
[THE FALL OF A MOUNTAIN.]
BY DAVID KER.
Some seventy years ago an old man sat at the door of his cottage in the Swiss village of Goldau enjoying the warmth of the summer sunshine, and the view of the fresh green valley dappled here and there with dark clumps of trees. All around the great purple mountains stood up against the sky, as if keeping guard over the pretty little village in their midst, with its tiny log-huts clustered beneath the shadow of the neat white church, like chickens nestling under the wing of the mother hen.
A big, florid, jolly-looking man came striding up the path, and held out his hand to the old peasant, with a hearty "Good-day, Neighbor Kraus."
"Good-day, Neighbor Schwartz. Fine weather to-day."