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Hallo, Snifler," he said, as, seeing no one else there, he walked in. "I'd like to know what you are doing in this room ? "

"I was sent for," said Fred, shrinking away from his enemy even in this place. "Say what's this?" continued Bamber, taking up and examining some articles lying on the table: there were some long glass tubes upon it, and as he touched one thing and another, his sleeve caught in one of the longest, and, before he noticed it, the tube fell on the floor, and was shivered in pieces. Bamber looked frightened for an instant, and then said, quickly, "No one will know who did it; I did'nt touch it, you can say that." "But you broke it," said little Fred faintly. The master's step was heard coming. "I tell you what, Snifler," he said fiercely, "if you dare to tell of me, you'll be sorry for it. I'll break every bone in your body. I'll never give you a moment's rest. Remember," he said, and slipped away from the room before the master saw him, leaving Fred, pale and trembling, looking down upon the broken bits of glass at his feet.

"Who did this?" asked the master, looking sternly into Fred's face. The colour came to his pale cheeks, and his eyes filled with tears, but he was silent.

"Tell me," said his master, more kindly. If you did it, don't be afraid to speak the truth, and you shall not be punished-did you let it fall?"

"No, Sir," answered Fred, trembling from head to foot. The master shook his head.

"This is a sad piece of business, worse than I thought; be brave, and own the truth-for if I find a boy is telling me a lie, I give him a flogging. I will ask you once more; I would rather you would break everything on the table than tell a falsehood. Did you break this tube ? "

"No, Sir," answered Fred in a fainter voice than before, so low that his master imagined he must be a very guilty, bad boy, who could not speak the truth. "Obstinate child," he said, "I will leave you in this room half-an-hour, and then

if you do not confess the truth, you must be punished, and he went out, locking the door after him.

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Fred cried faster than before. "I will not tell a lie," he said to himself. "Dear mamma, I promised her I never would; he may whip me, but I will not." He heard some one whistling under his window, and then a call for "Fred" in a low voice, and he went to the window, where he saw Bamber making motions for him to come nearer. Snifler," he said, shaking his fist and making a dreadful face, "if you tell on me, remember, I'll pound you; the master's whipping will be nothing to it." Fred heard no more ; he retreated from the window, and when the master returned he found him sitting crying.

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Well, Fred," he said very kindly, "be a man now, or rather be an honest boy; tell the truth at once; I shall ask you this once. Did you have anything to do with breaking this, and will you tell me anything you know about it ?"

Fred did not wait an instant, but looking up in the master', face, said, pitifully, "No, sir."

His master looked sadly puzzled. "Well, I must keep my word;" and Fred was whipped and sent disgraced to his room, but to the master's surprise, he did not cry so much for the whipping as he had before, and, as he was a kindhearted man, he did not punish his pupil as severely as if he had been a larger or tougher boy. The next day Fred had a headache; but he tried to say his lessons, and felt less afraid of Bamber than ever before, and Bamber avoided him. As he passed by some of the boys he heard them say, "There goes Snifler; I wonder how he feels after his whipping." He could eat no supper the next night, and went to bed with a raging headache; and in the morning, when he tried to get up, he staggered, and fell back on his bed. The boys crowded around him Snifler fainted away; they shouted; their master came; and before night he was delirious with fever The boys cried softly, and lowered their voices when they passed by the room where they had taken

;

the sick boy. He was ill for a week, and then one morning the master came in the schoolroom, and told them to put aside their books, and be very quiet that day; for little Fred was dead. Bamber wandered away from his companions, moody and restless, and answered the boys' questions so snappishly that they left him alone, wondering why he should care so much about a boy he had loved so little. But Bamber's head and heart seemed on fire; wherever he went something that sounded like a death-knell sounded in his ear, and with the sound, a voice that seemed to say to him, You've killed Snifler." "I didn't," he thought and said, as he strayed away from his companions, and went in the deserted schoolroom, and threw himself down upon a seat, but started up as he saw it was that of the dead boy, and, back into his ears, and from the depths of his soul, came the same knelling sound and voice, "You've killed little Snifler."

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He could not stand it there, and rushed out on the playground, and sat under the tree; he looked up; it was the very tree where he had thrown Fred's cap the first day he went to school, and the wind, sighing through the branches, brought back the same tale, "You killed Snifler." He started up and walked to and fro past the house; he stopped, before he thought, under the window, and there, as he glanced upward, he remembered he had seen the puny, crying child, when he had threatened and menaced him, and back upon his heart and ear came the same dreadful sensation.

He tried to force it down-to reason it away; at night when the boys slept, it came back with every heart-throb, keeping up the same tell-tale voice of conscience. He went with the other boys to take a last look at the pale corpse of the little boy before it was sent to rest by the side of his dead mother; and when he looked at the white face and closed eyes that would never more be heavy with tears, he shivered and felt sick as he turned aside with a groan: for, from under the coffin-lid came the terrible voice,—“You killed him."

Let no tear fall for little Fred; for his bleeding heart and

aching frame were peacefully at rest; no more longing, no more vexation and pain. But for Bamber there was no rest, day nor night; he grew more moody and nervous; he repelled his companions' curiosity and questions, hoping in time the dreadful, tormenting voice would trouble him no more. Vain hope, "for there is no rest for the wicked," and one morning Bamber, after a miserable, restless night, cowed and full of remorse, went to the master's room-the same room where the glass tube had been broken, and Sniffer received his unmerited punishment. Ten thousand floggings would have been easy to bear, in comparison to the humiliation before him; he trembled violently; there was no retreat, for the master's eye was upon him as he asked sternly: "What have you to say?" And Bamber stumbled out the painful confession, the voice of conscience had compelled him to make, and ended by asking pitifully, "Do you really think I killed him, Sir?"

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'Listen to me," said the master. "I have known all this before. I watched with little Fred during his illness, and my heart smote me for having done, as I thought, my duty to a poor orphan child; and by every word and act, I strove to show him how full of love and pity my heart was for him. The night before he died "-the master cleared his throat-" he fell asleep with his hand in mine, and when he woke he found me sitting by his bedside; he thanked me for my kindness, and said he would soon die; for he had seen his mother in a dream; she said she was waiting for him on this side of a river. But' ' said his mother, 'your master thinks you have told a lie-tell him my son, all about it,' and then the dying boy told me just what I have heard from your lips, and made me promise that you should not suffer for it. My promise made him happier, and I gave it and have kept it, hoping and praying every day would be the last you would allow this to weigh upon your guilty conscience."

Bamber was crying, and the master's tears mingled

with his. "As you have come to me with this confession, I freely forgive all. May you seek the forgiveness of Heaven, and now I have strong hope that you never again will be found guilty of similar sin." Bamber left the room a saddened, better boy: the voice so terrible no longer troubled him, but the result of that sad and wicked incident of his school-life proved of life-long benefit.

ROCKS.

LAD was taking his first trip by water, and as most boys do, rambled up and down the vessel, watching all about him with eager curiosity. By-and-bye he stood beside the helmsman. Here and there, over the water, were scattered floating sticks of painted timber, and now he noticed that the vessel turned aside here and there to avoid them.

"Why do you turn out for those little sticks ?" said the boy, "I would ride right over them."

The gruff old helmsman gave him only a glance from under his shaggy brows, and one word which seemed wrenched from the depths of his chest; one word, but it spoke a volume," Rocks!"

The boy could see no danger; the water looked as far about the buoys as at any other place. He thought in his childish wisdom that the old helmsman was over particular; so he answered again, "I would'nt turn out, I would go straight ahead."

The old man did not reply except by a glance which the boy has never forgotten, even in his manhood. It seemed say, "Poor foolish child, how little you know of rocks." That boy has long been a faithful pastor, and he often tells

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