me.

3. I stole noiselessly up behind her, and she did not hear The window was full of artificial flowers, of the cheapest sort, but of very gay colors. Here and there a knot of ribbon or a bit of lace had been tastefully added, and the whole effect was really remarkable gay and pretty. Tap, tap, tap, went the small hand against the window-pane, and with every tap the unconscious little creature murmured, in a half-whispering, half-singing voice: "I choose that color." "I choose. that color." "I choose that color."

me.

4. I stood motionless. I could not see her face, but there was in her whole attitude and tone the heartiest content and delight. I moved a little to the right, hoping to see her face without her seeing me, but the slight movement caught her ear, and in a second she had sprung aside and turned toward The spell was broken. She was no longer the queen of an air-castle decking herself in all the rainbow-hues which pleased her eye. She was a poor beggar child, out in the rain, and a little frightened at the approach of a stranger. She did not move away, however, but stood eyeing me irresolutely, with that pathetic mixture of interrogation and defiance in her face which is so often seen in the prematurelydeveloped faces of poverty-stricken children.

ແ

5. "Aren't the colors pretty?" I said. She brightened instantly. "Yes, ma'am, I'd like a gown of that blue color." "But you will take cold standing in the wet," said I. Won't you come under my umbrella?" She looked down at her wet dress suddenly, as if it had not occurred to her before that it was raining. Then she drew first one little foot and then the other out of the muddy puddle in which she had been standing, and moving a little closer to the window, said, "I'm not going home just yet, ma'am. I'd like to stay here a while."

6. So I left her. But after I had gone a few blocks the impulse seized me to return by a cross street and see if she were still there. Tears sprang to my eyes as I first caught sight of the upright little figure, standing in the same spot, still pointing with the rhythmic finger to the blues and reds and yellows, and half chanting under her breath as before:

"I choose that color." "I choose that color." "I choose that color."

7. I went quietly on my way, without disturbing her again. But I said in my heart, "Little messenger, interpreter, teacher, I will remember you all my life!" Why should days be ever dark, life ever be colorless? There is always sun; there are always blue and scarlet and yellow and purple. We cannot reach them, perhaps, but we can see them; if it is only "through a glass” and “darkly," still we can see them. We can "choose our colors.

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8. It rains, perhaps, and we are standing in the cold. Never mind. If we look earnestly enough at the brightness which is on the other side the glass, we shall forget the wet and not feel the cold. And now and then a passer-by who has rolled himself up in furs to keep out the cold, but shivers nevertheless, who has money in his purse to buy many colors, if he likes, but, nevertheless, goes grumbling because some colors are too dear for him,—such a passer-by, chancing to hear our voice, and see the atmosphere of our content, may learn a wondrous secret-that pennilessness is not poverty and ownership is not possession; that to be without is not always to lack, and to reach is not to attain; that sunlight is for all eyes that look up, and color for those who "choose."

HELEN HUNT.

SELECT ETYMOLOGIES.-Article: L. artic'ulus, dimin. of ar'tus, a joint, a distinct part; h., articulate, etc. . . . Atmosphere: Gr. atmos, vapor, and sphai'ra, sphere. Conscience: L. con and sci'o, I know; h., omni-science, pre-science, science, sciolist (a pretender to knowledge), etc. . . . Continual: L. con and ten'eo, ten'tum, to hold: v. TENURE. . . Interrogation: L. inter and rog'o, roga'tum, to ask. . . . Irregular : L. in-, not, and reg'ula, a rule, fr. reg'o, rec'tum, to keep straight; rex, re'gis, a king, reg'num, a reign; h., cor-rect, di-rect, e-rect, rectify, rector, regal, regent, regimen, regiment, region, regulate, right, rule, etc. . . . Milliner: fr. Milaner, an inhabitant of Milan in Italy. . . Pavement: L. pav'io, I beat. Rhythmic: Gr. rhūth'mikŏs; fr. rhuth'mos, measured motion; the agreement of measure and time in prose and poetry, also in dancing. . . Umbrella: L. um'bra, a shade; h., umbrage (shade, wh. the feeling of being overshadowed).. Worsted: fr. Worstead, a village near Norwich,

England.

VI.-ON LEAVING AMERICA FOR ENGLAND.

WITH triumph this morning, O Boston, I hail
The stir of thy deck and the spread of thy sail,
For they tell me I soon shall be wafted, in thee,
To the flourishing isle of the brave and the free,
And that chill Nova Scotia's unpromising strand
Is the last I shall tread of American land.
Well, peace to the land! may her sons know, at length,
That in high-minded honor lies liberty's strength!
That though man be as free as the fetterless wind,
As the wantonest air that the north can unbind,
Yet, if health do not temper and sweeten the blast,
If no harvest of mind ever sprang where it passed,
Then unblest is such freedom and baleful its might,
Free only to ruin, and strong but to blight!

Farewell to the few I have left with regret:
May they sometimes recall, what I cannot forget,
The delight of those evenings-too brief a delight!-
When in converse and song we have stolen on the night;
When they've asked me the manners, the mind or the mien
Of some bard I had known or some chief I had seen,
Whose glory, though distant, they long had adored,
Whose name had oft hallowed the wine-cup they poured.
And still as, with sympathy humble but true,
I have told of each bright son of fame all I knew,
They have listened, and sighed that the powerful stream
Of America's empire should pass, like a dream,
Without leaving one relic of genius to say
How sublime was the tide which had vanished away!

Farewell to the few; though we never may meet
On this planet again, it is soothing and sweet
To think that whenever my song or my name
Shall recur to their ear they'll recall me the same
I have been to them now, young, unthoughtful and blest,
Ere hope had deceived me or sorrow deprest.

But, Douglas! while thus I recall to my mind
The elect of the land we shall soon leave behind,
I can read in the weather-wise glance of thine eye,
As it follows the rack flitting over the sky,
That the faint coming breeze will be fair for our flight,
And shall steal us away ere the falling of night.
Dear Douglas! thou knowest, with thee by my side,
With thy friendship to soothe me, thy courage to guide,
There is not a bleak isle in those summerless seas
Where the day comes in darkness, or shines but to freeze,
Not a track of the line, not a barbarous shore,
That I could not with patience, with pleasure, explore.

Oh think, then, how gladly I follow thee now,
When hope smooths the billowy path of our prow,
And each prosperous sigh of the west-springing wind
Takes me nearer the home where my heart is enshrined;
Where the smile of a father shall meet me again,

And the tears of a mother turn bliss into pain;
Where the kind voice of sisters shall steal to my heart,
And ask it in sighs how we ever could part.
But see! the bent top-sails are ready to swell—
To the boat! I am with thee-Columbia, farewell!
THOMAS MOORE, 1780-1852.

SELECT ETYMOLOGIES.-Elect : L. elec'tus; fr. e'ligo, elec'tum, to pick out; fr. e, out, and leg'o, lec'tum, to gather, to read, to choose; h., col-lect, colleague, college, di-ligent (fr. di-ligo, I love, I distinguish by choosing from others, h., lovingly assiduous), e-legant (lit., chosen from), e-ligible, intel-lect (fr. inter, between), intel-ligence, intel-ligible, lecture, legend, legible, legion, lesson, neg-lect (neg=nec, not), neg-ligence, pre-di-lection (a previous liking), re-collect, se-lect (fr. se, aside, and lego), etc., v. ALLEGE. . . . Empire: L. impĕr'ium; fr. im'pe-ro, impera'tum, to command; fr. im in and păr'o, I prepare, I order; h., emperor, imperial, imperious, etc. Humble: L. hu'milis; fr. hu'mus, the ground; h., ex-hume (to unbury), humility, in-hume (to bury), etc. . . . Patience: L. pătien'tia; fr. pat'ior, pas'sus, to suffer; h., com-passion, com-patible, dis-passionate, im-passive, im-patient, in-com-patible, passion, passive, etc. . . . Planet: Gr. pla-nē'tēs; fr. planas'thai, to wander. . . . Recur: L. recur'ro; fr. re, again, back, cur'ro, cur'sum, to run. . . . Relic: L. reliq'ui-æ, pl., fr. relin'quo, relictum, to leave behind; fr. re and lin'quo, I leave; h., de-linquent, de-relict (forsaken), relic, relict, re-linquish, etc. . . . Vanish: L. va-nes'co; fr. va'nus, that contains nothing; h., e-vanescent, vain, vanity, vaunt, etc.

VII.-CORRUPTIONS OF LANGUAGE.

Pronounce Enone, e-nō'ne; Crimea, kri-me'a.

1. So many persons, without anything deserving the name of education, have become writers by profession, that written language may almost be said to be principally wielded by persons ignorant of the proper use of the instrument, and who are spoiling it more and more for those who understand it. Vulgarisms which creep in, nobody knows how, are daily depriving the English language of valuable modes of expressing thought. To take a present instance: the verb transpire formerly conveyed very expressively its correct meaning, namely, to become known through unnoticed channels-to exhale, as it were, into publicity through invisible pores, like a vapor or gas disengaging itself. But of late a practice has commenced of employing this word, for the sake of finery, as a mere synonym of to happen: "the events which have transpired in the Crimea," meaning the incidents of the war.

2. This vile specimen of bad English is already seen in the dispatches of noblemen and viceroys; and the time is apparently not far distant when nobody will understand the word if used in its proper sense. It is a great error to think that these corruptions of language do no harm. Those who are struggling with the difficulty (and who know by experience how great it already is) of expressing one's self clearly with precision, find their resources continually narrowed by illiterate writers, who seize and twist from its purpose some form of speech which once served to convey briefly and compactly an unambiguous meaning.

3. It would hardly be believed how often a writer is compelled to a circumlocution by the single vulgarism, introduced during the last few years, of using the word alone as an adverb; only not being fine enough for the rhetoric of ambitious ignorance. A man will say: "To which I am not alone bound by honor, but also by law," unaware that what he has unintentionally said is that he is not alone bound, some other person being bound with him. Formerly, if any one said, “I am