AQ Had Story.

~/ H me!” said the sponge. ‘Dear! dear! dear! well-a-day!”

‘‘Whatisthe matter?” askedthebath-tub. ‘Have
you been squeezed too hard, or has the nurse rubbed
soap on you again? I know soap never agrees with
you.”

“Tam rather exhausted by the squeezing, I con-
fess, replied the sponge; “but it wasnot for that I
sighed. Iam gradually getting used to these daily

wa?) tortures.

“But I was thinking about the past; about my beau-
tiful home, from which I was so cruelly torn, and about the happy,
happy life I led there.”

“Tell me about it,” said the bath-tub. ‘You have told me before, but I
always find it interesting. My home was in a tin-shop, as you are aware. The
BOrIeLy was good, but it was rather a dull place, on the whole. You lived, you
say’ —

“On the coast of Syria,” said the sponge, with a sigh—‘‘the coast of beau-
tiful Syria. There is a tiny bay, where the shore is bold androcky. The rocks
are bare above the water, but down below they are covered with lovely plants,
and fringed with gay mosses, beautiful to behold. The bottom of the sea is
covered with silver sand, and over it move the crimson and gold colored jelly-
fish, the scarlet star-fish, and a thousand other brilliant creatures, making the
neighborhood always attractive and delightful. On a certain ledge of oer
close by the bottom, I lived, as happy an nial as could be found in the Med-
iterranean Sea.”

“What do you mean?” interrupted the nail-brush, which was new, and very
ignorant. “You, an animal? I don’t believe it. If your back were bone, and
your hair pig-bristles, like mine, you might at least call yoursclt an animal
product; but you have no back that I can see, nor hair either.”

“You are extremely rude,” said the sponge. “But you know no better,
and ignorance should always be pitied rather than blamed. Iwas an animal,
my. young friend, though now, alas! I am only the skeleton of one.

“T lived, as I said, a very happy life on my rocky ledge. I never moved
from it. I had no occasion to do so, even if [had been provided with legs, as
many animals are. I never had any fancy fora roving life. To draw in the
warm, delicious water through the thousand small holes and canals of my