be

TRE PREMIUM. 171

which makes home pleasant; and as Jesus Christ
taught us to love and be kind to each other, the
home of the Christian will always be the happiest
home.”

A fortnight before the examination, Mary had
accomplished the greatest labour of her life; she
had written her composition, and with almost as
much trepidation as she afterward felt in giving
it to Mrs. Butler, she read it to Lucy, that she
might hear her opinion of its merits. Mary, fol-
lowing the suggestion of Mr. Lovett, had told,
sith the utmost simplicity, of the pleasures she
had enjoyed in her carly home; of rambling
through its woods, which were green even in
winter with the dark pine, and cedar, and live
oak, and in spring and summer were bright with
flowers of a thousand hues; of watching its wa-
ters as they danced beneath the beams of the carly
morning sun, or as the moonlight lay like a long
column of gold upon them; of listening to the
birds as they trilled forth their merry songs, and
of those sweet hours when, wearied with her
rambles, she sat at her mother’s feet, and learned
from her gentle teaching to raise her heart from