the square, scarcely lighted by the reflection of a distant oil lamp, that the boy Gavroche led two children.

On coming near the colossus Gavroche, knowing the effect which the infinitely great can produce upon the infinitely little, said, "Don't be frightened, little chaps!"

Then he passed through a gap in the palings into the inclosure surrounding the elephant, and helped the two boys through the breach.

They followed without a word, somewhat frightened, but confiding in the little Providence in rags who had given them bread and promised a resting place.

A ladder, employed by some was lying along the palings. singular vigor and placed it phant's fore legs.

workmen in the square, Gavroche raised it with against one of the ele

At a point where the ladder ended, a sort of black hole could be distinguished in the body of the colossus. Gavroche pointed out the ladder and the hole, and said to his guests, "Mount and enter."

The two little boys looked at each other in terror. "You are frightened, young ones!" exclaimed Gavroche; and added, "You shall see."

He clung around the elephant's wrinkled leg, and in a minute, without deigning to employ the ladder, he reached the hole, entered it like a lizard gliding into a crevice, and a moment afterwards the boys saw

his face like a livid spot at the edge of the hole, which was full of darkness.

"Well," he cried, " come up, my blessed babes; you will see how snug it is. Come up, you," he said, addressing the elder of the two. "I will hold your hand."

The little boys nudged each other, for Gavroche both frightened and reassured them; and then, it was raining very hard. The elder boy ventured, and the younger, seeing his brother going up, and himself left alone between the feet of the great beast, felt greatly inclined to cry; but he did not dare.

"Don't be frightened! that's it! keep on moving! set your foot there; now your hand here; bravo!" When he was within reach, Gavroche quickly and powerfully seized him by the arm and drew him through the crevice.

"Swallowed!" he exclaimed. "Now," he added, "wait for me. Pray sit down, sir."

Leaving the hole as he had entered it, he slid down the elephant's trunk with the agility of a squirrel, seized the younger boy round the waist and planted him on the ladder. Then he began ascending behind him, shouting to the elder boy, "I'll push and you pull."

In a twinkling the little fellow was pushed up, dragged, pulled, drawn through the hole before he knew where he was; and Gavroche, entering after

him, kicked away the ladder, which fell on the grass, and clapping his hands, shouted,

"Hurrah for General Lafayette!" This explosion over, he said, "Boys, you are in my house."

Gavroche was, in fact, at home. Unexpected utility of the useless! This huge moldering monument had become a shelter for a street boy. Many who passed by the Elephant of the Bastille would cast at it a contemptuous glance and say, "Of what use is this great ugly thing?" That great thing had its use. It served to save from cold, from frost, from rain, to preserve from sleeping in the mud and the snow, a little fatherless, motherless boy, without bread or shelter.

[Translated and adapted

by M. C. Pyle.]

VICTOR HUGO.

TO A THRUSH SINGING IN JANUARY.

Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain:
See aged Winter, mid his surly reign,
At thy blithe carol clears his furrowed brow.

So in lone Poverty's dominion drear

Sits meek Content, with light unanxious heart, Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part, Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear.

I thank thee, Author of this opening day!
Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies!
Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys,

What wealth could never give nor take away!

Yet come, thou child of Poverty and Care;
The mite high Heaven bestowed, that mite with
thee I'll share.

We were going to mill, father and I and Lyte Howard, in Oregon, about forty years ago, with oxteams. We had a dozen or two bags of wheat threshed with a flail and winnowed with a wagon cover, and were camped for the night by the Calipoola River; for it took two days to reach the mill. Lyte got out his fiddle, keeping his gun, close at hand.

of course,

Pretty soon the oxen came down, came very close, so close that they almost put their cold, moist noses against the backs of our necks, as we sat there on the ox-yokes or reclined on our blankets around the crackling pine-log fire and listened to the wild, sweet strains

that swept down and up till the very tree-tops seemed to dance and quiver with delight.

Then suddenly father seemed to feel the presence of something or somebody strange, and I felt it too. But the fiddler felt, heard, saw nothing but the divine, wild melody that made the very pine-trees dance and quiver to their tips. It is strange how a man -I mean the natural man-will feel a presence long before he hears it or sees it.

Father got up, turned about, put me behind him— as an animal will put its young-and peered back and down, through the dense tangle of the deep river bank, to the water's edge; then he reached around and drew me to him with his left hand, pointing between the oxen sharp down the bank with his right forefinger.

A bear! two bears! and another coming; one already more than halfway across on the great mossy log that lay above the deep, sweeping waters of the Calipoola; and Lyte kept on, and the wild, sweet music leaped up and swept through the delighted and dancing boughs above.

Then father reached back to the fire and thrust a long, burning bough deeper into the dying embers, and the glittering sparks leaped and laughed and danced and swept out and up and up, as if to companion with the stars.

Then Lyte knew. He did not hear, he did not see, he only felt; but the fiddle forsook his fingers and his