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6

THE BLACKBIRD'S NEST.

TELLY, Nelly, what do you think I

have here? Now, you can't guess! I know you can't," shouted Willie, as he came out of the little wood, and looked over the paling into the backyard, where his sister was feeding the chickens.

'Oh! a letter from Uncle George in the West Indies!' answered Nelly, anxiously.

'No, it isn't. Now, that's one guess.' 'Well, is it the Dayspring from Miss McKenzie?'

'Not that either,' replied Willie. 'Nothing of that sort nothing for reading.'

'Perhaps you've been over at Strang's. Is it pudding or pan-cakes, or anything like that, then?'

'No, no, Nelly,-you're wrong yet. It's nothing of that sort-nothing for eating and nothing for reading,'-and Willie shook his head, smiling and looking 80 cunningly, that Nelly's curiosity was intensely increased.

Now, though Nelly was paler and more timid in her manner, you could have easily known that she and Willie were sister and brother, they resembled each other so much in features and facial appearance. But there was a very wide difference in their separate natures, if you had known them as I did. Nelly was an extremely thoughtful little girl, and very domestic in her habits-especially since the death of Bobby, a dear little brother, whom God had taken home to heaven just as the spring flowers had began to bloom, and the birds were returning with their songs. Nelly's whole delight after school-hours was to work about the house, and make herself useful to her mother, who was rather a delicate person. But Willie was very stirring; and although his rather wild disposition kept him in rosy cheeks and much amusement, it frequently led him into mistakes and troubles, which might, in many instances, have been avoided with a little forethought. You know

'Tis needful little boys should think
On what they mean to do;

The time 's not wasted thinking twice
To save one risk to rue.

It was, indeed, specially needful for Willie to give himself a little to calculation in this way; not only on account of the delicate health of his mother, but because of the daily absence of his father, whose business was in the town eight miles distant.

On the day that the buoyant-spirited Willie puzzled his sister to guess what in all the world it could be he hid behind his back, he had been in the shady wood, a victim to his own thoughtlessness again. It was impossible for Nelly to guess aright; and when he produced to view a nest with four eggs that he had carried off in triumph as a trophy of his ramble, the timid girl quivered at the very idea of her brother's cruelty.

·

Look, Nelly, isn't that a beautiful egg! Take it in your hand and look at it. What are you afraid of? I don't think there's another blackbird's nest in that little wood of ours, or I would have found it out to-day,' he exclaimed, like one who had made some useful discovery.

The corn dropped from the hand of Nelly, and her eyes began to glisten with tears, causing Willie to think-when it was again too late-whether he had being doing wrong.

'Willie,' she kindly and quietly exclaimed, 'you know it is very wrong to rob the birds of their nests: and what would you say if that same nest and these four pretty eggs belonged to the same dear blackbird that so charmed our Bobby all through the snowy winter when he was so ill?'

He had no reply to make. This was something that had never struck him—just for the want of thought.

'I'm sure you must remember,' she continued, how, in the tedious months of his illness, he sat watching through the window the robins and sparrows who came to partake of the banquets father spread for them every morning on the sill outside. Can you have forgot the blackbird, which