LITTLE HAL'S RICHES OnE day our little Hal was invited to spend the after- noon with his young playmate Johnny Lewis. ~Johnny’s mother had died when he was a baby, but his father was still living. Johnny was' an only child, and he dwelt in a fine house, and on Sundays rode to church in the grandest carriage to be met with in all the country round. He had a great many toys, and a real watch that would go all day and every day without stopping; and as for candies and cakes, why! the physician who attended the family said that Johnny had enough of such things given him to sup- ply a whole regiment of little boys. He was a funny doec- tor, and liked to make droll speeches ; but, for all that, he would often shake his head very gravely when he felt his little patient's pulse; then he would look sternly at the big gold watch which he held in his hand while counting Johnny’s pulse-beats, and mutter, “Too many good things are bad things for youngsters.” Johnny would try for a while to puzzle out the strange sentence, but as he was ill on these occasions, he would soon give up the attempt 281