WHAT BERTIE SAW IN THE FLOWERS.
By L. G. R.
Buttercup! Buttercup!
Hold your shining clusters up!
In each little house of gold,
What is this that I behold?
Twenty soldiers, straight and slim,
Golden-helmeted and prim.
All day long so still they stand,
Never turning head or hand;
No one guesses where they stray
In the moonlight nights of May.
When the fairies are abroad,
These small men keep watch and ward;
Round the fairy ring they pace
All night long, to guard the place;
But when morning comes again,
Back are all the little men.
KEEPING THE CREAM OF ONE'S READING.
By Margaret Meredith.
My plan dates from a few delightful weeks which I spent with a girl friend, long ago. We were devoted to poetry and to reading aloud; and in that occupation we had the aid of a brilliant, accomplished young woman. She selected for us from Coleridge, Shelley, and several other authors, whose entire works she knew we would not care to read, all the specially fine poems or passages, and these we read and discussed with her over our fancy-work. It was charming. At last, she suggested that, as I was soon to go away and leave the books and clippings with which I had been growing familiar, it would be helpful for me to write down the choicest bits, and try in that way to keep in some degree what I had gained. This I did, putting the extracts in a school copy-book which our friend dubbed "Snippers,"—from an odd seamstress word which she had picked up by chance.