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'Fashion, do you mean?' cried Fairy-tale. Surely that is impossible, for she always was so kind to us before!'

'Oh, I know the meddlesome gossip,' replied the queen; 'but try again, my dear child, in spite of her; one must never be tired of doing good.'

'Ah, mother, but if she shuts the door upon me outright, or if she tells naughty stories of me, so that men turn away their heads, and let me stand lonely and forsaken, what am I to do?'

'If the old ones,' said the queen, 'are fooled over by the painted dame, and despise you, then make up to the young! They are my favourites; to them I send my prettiest pictures by your brothers, the Dreams: yes, I have often floated down to them myself, and kissed and fondled and played romps with them.'

'Oh, the dear children!' cried Fairy-tale, with a new hope. 'Yes, so it shall be. I will make another trial with them.'

'Do so, darling child,' said the queen. Go to them. Be sure you please the little ones, and then the old ones won't send you away.'-Hauff.

159. ONE'S OWN CHILDREN ARE ALWAYS PRETTIEST.

A sportsman went out once into a wood to shoot, and he met a snipe.

'Dear friend,' said the snipe, 'don't shoot my children!' 'How shall I know your children?' asked the sportsman: 'what are they like?'

'Oh!' said the snipe, mine are the prettiest children in all the wood.'

'Very well,' said the sportsman, 'I'll not shoot them; don't be afraid.'

But for all that when he came back there, he had a whole string of young snipes in his hand, which he had shot.

'Oh, oh!' said the snipe, 'why did you shoot my children after all?'

'What! these your children!' said the sportsman; 'why I shot the ugliest I could find; that I did!'

'Woe is me!' said the snipe; 'don't you know that everybody thinks his own children the prettiest?'

Popular Tales from the Norse.

160. ROBIN HOOD.

Robin Hood was born in the reign of King Henry the Second, at Locksley, in the county of Nottingham. Robin, at the age of fifteen, was the best archer in the whole country and the best at all games of skill and trials of strength. But he was a very wild young fellow, and cared little what he did or what he spent. Almost before he was a man he had spent all his money. So many were the pranks he played, and so great were his debts, that he was at last declared an outlaw.

He then went and lived in the woods, and killed the king's deer for food. Some other young men, who were wild like himself, went with him; and in a few years there were about one hundred of them, with Robin for their captain. The fame of their deeds spread far and near, and they were known everywhere as Robin Hood and his merry men.

One of the chief of them was John Little, whom Robin one day met on a narrow bridge. Now as neither would allow the other to pass peaceably, they fought with sticks until they were tired. At last John Little knocked Robin over into the water, and he had to swim ashore. They both admired each other's courage and skill so much that they became friends, and scarcely ever parted afterwards. John Little was nearly seven feet high, so the companions of Robin called him Little John for fun, and he went by that name ever after. This was just the way with Robin: when he found anyone was as strong, as brave, and as skilful as himself, instead of continuing the fight, he made a bargain to be friends, and it was much better than fighting until one of them was killed.—Laurie's Series.

161. THE RAPIDS.

I remember riding from Buffalo to the Niagara Falls, and I said to a man, 'What river is that, sir?' That,' he said, 'is Niagara river.' 'Well, it is a beautiful stream,' said I; 'bright and fair, and glassy; how far off are the rapids?' 'Only a mile or two,' was the reply. Is it possible that only a mile from us we shall find the water in the turmoil which it must show when near the Falls?' 'You will find it so, sir.' And so

I found it; and that first sight of the Niagara I shall never forget.

Now launch your bark on that Niagara river; it is bright, smooth, beautiful, and glassy. There is a ripple at the bow; the silvery wake you leave behind adds to your enjoyment. Down the stream you glide-oars, sails, and helm in proper trim-and you set out on your pleasure excursion.

Suddenly some one cries out from the bank, 'Young men, ahoy!' 'What is it?' 'The rapids are below you.' 'Ha! ha! we have heard of the rapids, but we are not such fools as to get there. If we go too fast, then we shall up with the helm and steer to the shore; we will set the mast in the socket, hoist the sail, and speed to land. Haste away!'

'Young men, ahoy there!' 'What is it?' 'The rapids are below you.' 'Ha, ha! Never fear! Time enough to steer out of danger when we are sailing swiftly with the current. On! on!'

"Young men ahoy!' 'What is it?' 'Beware! Beware! The rapids are below you. Now you see the water foaming all around. See how fast you pass that point! Up with the helm! Now turn! Pull hard!-quick! quick!-pull for your lives! pull till the blood starts from the nostrils, and the veins stand like whipcord upon the brow! Set the mast in the socket !hoist the sail! Ah, ah!-it is too late. Shrieking hopelessly, over you go.'

Thousands go over 'rapids' every year, heedless of the still small warning voice.-Gough.

162. MAHOMET.

Mahomet, or more properly Mohammed, the only son of Abdallah and Amina, was born at Mecca, four years after the death of Justinian, and two months after the defeat of the Abyssinians, whose victory would have introduced into the Caaba the religion of the Christians. In his early infancy, he was deprived of his father, his mother, and his grandfather; his uncles were strong and numerous; and in the division of the inheritance, the orphan's share was reduced to five camels and an Æthiopian maid-servant. Abu Taleb, the most respectable of his uncles, was the guide and guardian of his youth.

Mahomet, in his twenty-fifth year, entered into the service of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune. The marriage contract describes him as the most accomplished of the tribe of Koreish; and stipulates a dowry of twelve ounces of gold and twenty camels, which was supplied by the liberality of his uncle. By this alliance, the son of Abdallah was restored to the station of his ancestors; and the judicious Cadijah was content with his domestic virtues, till, in the fortieth year of his age, he assumed the title of a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of the Koran.

According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet was distinguished by the beauty of his person, an outward gift that is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused. Before he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affections of a public or private audience. They applauded his commanding presence, his majestic aspect, his piercing eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his countenance that painted every sensation of his soul, and his gestures that enforced each expression of the tongue. In the familiar offices of life he scrupulously adhered to the grave and ceremonious politeness of his country: his respectful attention to the rich and powerful was dignified by his condescension and affability to the poorest citizens of Mecca : the frankness of his manner concealed the artifice of his views. His memory was capacious and retentive; his imagination sublime; his judgment clear, rapid, and decisive. He possessed the courage both of thought and action; and, although his designs might gradually expand with his success, the first idea which he entertained of his divine mission bears the stamp of an original and superior genius. The son of Abdallah was educated in the bosom of the noblest race, in the use of the purest dialect of Arabia. With these powers of eloquence, Mahomet was an illiterate barbarian; his youth had never been instructed in the arts of reading and writing; the common ignorance exempted him from shame or reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of existence, and deprived of those faithful mirrors which reflect to our mind the minds of

sages and heroes. From his earliest youth Mahomet was addicted to religious contemplation; each year, during the month of Ramadan, he withdrew from the world, and in the cave

of Hera, three miles from Mecca, he consulted the spirit of fraud or enthusiasm, whose abode is not in the heavens, but in the mind of the Prophet. The faith, which under the name of Islam, he preached to his family and nation, is compounded of an eternal truth and a necessary fiction, THAT THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD, AND THAT MAHOMET IS THE APOSTLE OF GOD. -Gibbon. 1737-1794.

163. THE VULTURE AND HIS CHILDREN.

'My children,' said an old vulture to his young ones, 'you will the less want my instructions, because you have had my practice before your eyes. You have seen me snatch from the farm the household fowls, you have seen me seize the leveret in the bush, and the kid in the pasture; you know how to fix your talons, and how to take your flight when you are laden with your prey. But you remember the taste of more delicious food. I have often regaled you with the flesh of man.' 'Tell us,' said the young vultures, 'where man may be found, and how he may be known; his flesh is surely the natural food of the vulture. Why have you never brought a man in your talons to the nest ? " 'He is too bulky,' said the vulture; 'when we find a man we can only tear away his flesh, and leave his bones upon the ground.' 'Since man is so big,' said the young ones, how do you kill him? You are afraid of the wolf and of the bear; by what power are vultures superior to man? Is man more defenceless than a sheep?' 'We have not the strength of man,' returned the vulture, and I am sometimes in doubt whether we have his subtlety; and the vultures would seldom feast upon his flesh, had not nature that devoted him to our uses infused into him a strange ferocity, which I have never observed in any other being that feeds upon the earth. Two herds of men will often meet and shake the earth with noise, and fill the air with fire. When you hear noise, and see fire, with flashes along the ground, hasten to the place with your swiftest wing, for men are surely destroying one another; you will then find the ground smoking with blood, and covered with carcasses, of which many are dismembered and mangled for the convenience of the vulture." 'But when men have killed their prey,' said the pupil, 'why do they not eat it? When the wolf has killed a sheep, he suffers not the vulture to touch it till he has satisfied himself. Is not

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