'I thought it must be either one or the other, you are so dressed up.'

"Yes, I am. Isn't this a pretty gown? I am going to spend the afternoon with a dear old friend of mine who has just passed her seventieth birthday, and I expect to have just the loveliest time in the world."

"But what in the world did you put on your best clothes for?"

"Just because I want her to see them. She is as interested in pretty things as you and I are. Because she has got past the wearing of them is no reason why she has ceased to care for them. I never have anything new that I do not show it to her almost the first thing, and then she admires it and tells me about the things she used to wear when she was a girl, and that leads up to all sorts of reminiscences. Oh, I just have the best time listening to her! I would not miss my afternoon with her every week for anything in the world, and I know she would grieve if I was kept from going to her. We are like a pair of girls together."

She nodded a merry good-by, and started off for her pleasant afternoon's visit, happy herself in bringing happiness and sunshine to another life, which, but for her, might have been dull and monotonous.

To resist with success the frigidity of old age we must combine the body, the mind, and the heart; to keep these in parallel vigor we must exercise, study, and love.

Bonstellen.

We do not count a man's years until he has nothing

else to count.

Emerson.

LET April renew
All the blossoms around,

The loveliest flower

In thy heart must be found.

Victor Hugo.

SAID Jowett, master of Balliol:

I always mean to

cherish the illusion, which is not an illusion, that the last years of life are the most valuable and important; and every year I shall try in some way or other to do more than the year before.

LIFE might be much easier and simpler than we make it; the world might be a happier place than it is; there is no need of struggles, convulsions, despairs, of the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. We miscreate our own evils.

APRIL FOOLS.

THE April-fools! the April-fools!
What happy folk are they!

The white flowers deck the cherry boughs,
And daffodils are gay.

The bluebird calls, the redbreast sings,
The blackbird pipes all day,
And they believe the silly things!
That birds and flowers will stay.

'Tis wind and frost and scorching skies
That make the April-fools grow wise!

The April-fools! the April-fools!
What happy folk are they!

They're light of head and light of heart,
And dance the hours away!

Young Love with fluttering purple wings,
Blithe Hope for them is new;

And they believe the trustful things!

That all they say is true!

Sweet simpletons! but who would frown
And shake their air-built castles down?
For dark were life, and full of sighs,
Should all its April-fools grow wise.

Marian Douglas.

I REVERENCE old age; I mean the right sort of old age. If one can grow old gracefully, can ripen like an apple, which is ruddy with sunshine and dew, and, at last drop into the basket of the fruit gatherer, then I think the sunset of life is more beautiful than its sunrise. Mellow, sweet-tempered age has a charm of its own. George H. Hepworth.

EXERCISE, both bodily and mental, is beneficial to old age. The love of a garden always pleases old age, as may be seen from Laertes to Canon Beaudin.

As a general rule for a happy old age, every faculty of body and soul ought to be exercised, but not so much as to fatigue them.

MRS. AMELIA E. BARR, the novelist, who was born at Ulverstone, Lancashire, is seventy-one years old. She had passed her fiftieth birthday before she began novel writing.

SPRING SONG.

My dear, who dreams of growing old
When Earth herself is new?

What things save death could touch with cold
The heart that's nearest you?

A man's not old who plucks a bloom,
And halts to hear a song;

Time brings regret, but never gloom,
To him whose love is strong.

And so, when snowdrops shine, my dear,
And blackbirds bravely sing,

My heart that sighed to lose a year

Grows glad to gain a spring!

J. J. Bell in Outlook.

APRIL DAYS.

SINGS and smiles the Spring and sparkles everywhere; Well I know that death and pain to all are near; That, save sorrow, naught is certain this world gives; Yet my heart stirs with the budding of the year, And rejoices still with everything that lives.

Celia Thaxter.