that day forth she disliked sunflowers, and could not bear to look at one in a garden. But by this time she was standing close to Uncle Archie, his arm was round her, and she was sobbing out her grief on his shoulder-a soothing process, which presently calmed the poor little soul, and by degrees and degrees her tears stopped, and her sobs grew few and far between.

"I'm not naughty now," she said, with a great sigh. "No, no, you are not naughty now," was the kind reply, "and you'll never be so naughty again-never; I know that very well, and so we'll say no more about it. Suppose you and Aileen cut out kings and queens?"

This was a favourite occupation of the children. Uncle Archie used to draw outline figures of men and women in long robes, with crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands, which were called kings and queens, and which Rose and Aileen used to cut out and then play with. It was not very often that Uncle Archie had leisure for this amusement, so it was always looked on as a treat.

So Rose took her scissors and began, and soon the three were at work, though Rose's head ached, her eyes were heavy, her cheeks pale, and her poor little nose had a red tip to it.

For the first time since Uncle Archie had found her in his arm-chair on that memorable night, now four years ago, she felt glad when the knock at the drawing-room door sounded which told that Bridget stood outside ready to carry the children off to their beds.

When Uncle Archie kissed her and bade her good-night, she clasped him tightly round the neck, and held him to her with her two little arms with a strength that was quite surprising.

He did not wish to make the occasion too solcmn, and thought the sooner she forgot her strange and, to him, very unexpected burst of naughtiness the better, so he just kissed her as usual, and said gaily, "Good-night, my own little maiden."

And so the two children went to bed.

She

But if Uncle Archie thought Rose was going to forget either easily or quickly the events that had occurred that evening, he was very much mistaken. They had awakened a number of new feelings within her, and also the knowledge of possibilities that had never crossed her mind before. awoke the next day with that feeling on her mind that something sad had happened before she knew what the something was that we have all of us experienced, and then she remembered that she could not write exercises like Aileen's, that her Uncle Archie wished she could, and that Aileen's lessons had pleased him, while hers had not.

She was a very quiet and silent little girl all

breakfast-time, but Uncle Archie was too busy with letters and newspapers to perceive the difference in her, and went off as usual to the Four Courts, Rose watching him as usual from the window, but not, as always before, with a light heart and smiling face.

Miss Smyly could not make the little girl out in the schoolroom that morning, and after lessons were over she was fractious and cross, and not at all like herself. Poor Rose did not herself know why this was, but the secret grief in her heart interfered with everything, and she felt ready to cry or speak fretfully at the merest trifles.

A few days passed away, and she became more like Uncle Archie's little Rose. The impression, no doubt, would have quite faded from her mind if there had not been the daily lessons to keep it up, and also an uncomfortable feeling about Aileen, which she was hardly aware of herself, but which, without her understanding it, made her unhappy.

Miss Smyly remarked a difference in her, and asked her more than once if she felt well: a question that surprised Rose, as she was not conscious that she did not appear the same as usual, and she always replied, "Quite well, thank you." Then Miss Smyly consulted Bridget, who bade her rather sharply "not have her fancies," for Bridget had a jealousy of Miss Smyly that she could never get over, and had no idea at all of being on confidential terms with her.

Miss Smyly did not feel easy about her little pupil, whom she loved very dearly, and was afraid that she might be going to be ill, if she were not ill already; so she watched her carefully, and still she was not satisfied.

One day Aileen had translated a page of French into English, and written it out so very nicely that Miss Smyly said, "I am sure Mr. Burke has no idea how well you are getting on, Aileen. He would be extremely pleased at this, and you may show it to him when he comes home."

Aileen, instead of looking glad, as her governess expected, coloured painfully, and sending a furtive glance at Rose, said in a very low voice, "No, please not ;" and at the same instant Rose burst into a flood of tears, crying out, "She shan't-she

Here she stopped, but only to cry the more. She really did not understand herself what it was she felt, and she could not in the least explain it.

"Oh, Rose! I hope you are not envious of Aileen?" Miss Smyly said, very sorrowfully. It seemed to her such a sad thing if one of her little pupils were envious of the other.

I don't think Rose knew what envious meant, and I am quite sure that she did not, as I have said before, in the least understand what it was she did feel, but all she found herself able to say was, "I want Uncle Archie."

Miss Smyly looked thoughtfully from one child to the other.

"I needn't show it, need I?" Aileen asked timidly. "Well, I suppose you need not," the young governess replied in doubtful tones; "but it does not seem quite fair either that you should not get the credit of what you do," she added, but more to herself than to Aileen.

Aileen looked quite relieved when she heard she need not show her translation, and said, in a grateful manner, "Thank you;" while Rosy repeated, in a very melancholy voice, "I want Uncle Archie."

Miss Smyly was puzzled. She questioned Aileen when Rose was not by, and learned a little of what had passed about the exercises. Aileen by no means exactly understood the reasons of what had happened, but she told Miss Smyly that it made Rose miserable not to write good exercises when she found Uncle Archie wished it, and that she had been angry with Aileen, and cried for a long time very much, and that Aileen did not like it.

"Shall I not write any more?" she asked. "I don't know what to do."

Lessons were not nearly as agreeable after this conversation as they had been before. Rose watched Aileen jealously, and seemed as if she were always afraid that some time or other, if she were not on her guard, something would be carried off and shown in triumph to her uncle. She gradually became really unhappy that she could not do better herself, and seldom got through school-hours without a hearty cry, a thing that had not been even thought of in that cheerful schoolroom before. Her fretfulness when these unpleasant lessons were over remained behind them, and her temper appeared to be gradually souring. She grew very quarrelsome with Aileen, and jealous of any attention that either she paid Uncle Archie or he her; and altogether, from not trying to conquer the first fault herself, and no one being there to point out to her that it was a fault, to be conquered, and to help her try to conquer it, it seemed only too likely that her good disposition would be spoiled altogether.

Miss Smyly, though young and inexperienced, and not knowing how to train the child herself, saw how hard all this was for her, and made up her mind at last that, as she could get no help from Bridget, she would take courage, and speak to Mr. Burke about his little niece herself.

This she did the first opportunity, and found that he too had observed a change in Rose.

"She is always quarrelling with Aileen," he said, "who is becoming a regular little slave to her."

"Aileen is so very clever," Miss Smyly said. "I thought perhaps you might mean her to support herself by teaching some day, and be a governess." Well, really, I never thought of her but as a little companion for my Rose. It did not occur to me that she will have to take care of herself one of these days, and I don't believe I ever remember that these children will grow up, Miss Smyly."

'I am afraid," she replied, "the plan of keeping Aileen as Rose's companion will not answer ; the children are not happy together, and they will become less and less so. Lessons are now a constant vexation. Rose is always crying, and she has grown quite cross. She is not a bit stupid; she is clever enough, and before she got so unhappy about them did her lessons very well. But Aileen is wonderfully clever. If you would not think me presuming in offering advice, Mr. Burke, I should say send Aileen to school, at least for a year, to see how the experiment answers. If she is to be a governess she must have regular schooling ; and the children will not get on well together, I am convinced, without a break."

"I am very much obliged to you, and I will think about it,” was Mr. Burke's reply.

The very next day, while Mr. Burke was "thinking about it," Aileen and Rose quarrelled, and it so happened that he overheard the quarrel.

He had left the breakfast-room to go out, and the door of the room was open. He returned to fetch something, and hearing the children's voices rather raised within, stopped to amuse himself by listening to their prattle.

"Don't come into the window," Rose said, in her most imperious manner. "I don't choose you to look at my uncle."

"Oh, Rose!"

"No, I don't. He is my uncle. It is not every day you can be permitted to look. He's not your uncle, is he?"

A short silence, and then Aileen answered, in rather a reproachful, though deprecating voice, "He is my Mr. Burke."

"You shall look at him on Thursdays and Saturdays," said imperious little Rose. "He is my uncle, and I shall settle just what I please."

is my everything; he is your-nothing; and you have nothing to do with him."

"Oh, Rose! why are you so unkind. He is my Mr. Burke, my own Mr. Burke."

"He is not your own; he is my own, my very, very own."

"Yes, Rose, but he is mine too."

"He's not-you shan't say so. Don't come near the window-don't! I'll fight if you do!"

"I must come; I must see him. I can fight better than you; I'm stronger."

"You try!"

A wrestling match, or battle with the fists, seemed imminent between the two little girls, who looked as if they were as unfit for fighting as any two people could be, and ought always to live in the most loving and affectionate manner together. So Mr. Burke came hastily in.

"I have left my gloves," he said. "Now, what are you two children quarrelling about?"

"She says you belong to her," cried Rose, with a

"polite designating of

Aileen by a thumb turned backwards and

a quivering lip; "and you don't, you don't."

"Oh, Rose! I didn't say that." "You did. You said he was your own Mr. Burke."

But, Rose, if you love me, do you not like other people to love me too?" inquired her uncle.

"No, I don't," she replied, without giving herself time for reflection; "not Aileen-she shan't love you. You are my Uncle Archie."

"But I do love him," Aileen said, in a low, earnest voice, and with tears in her eyes.

"She may love me, Rose. I should like my little niece, whose own uncle I am, to be very angry with Aileen if she did not love me."

Rose began to cry, half softened by his words, half adhering to her own view of the case.

"I wish we had never found her in the People's Park," she said, more in sorrow than in anger. "Oh, Rose!" said her uncle, " don't be so unkind as to say that."

Then Rose cried more than ever, but at the same time she kissed Aileen, and said, "I don't, Aileen." She was not sure whether she did or not. She was unhappy, and her feelings were mixed and confused, and she did not know what she meant or what she wished. She was jealous of Aileen, though she did not understand that she was, and as she

The harp was brought to great perfection by the clever old Egyptians. Their harps were nearly as good as those which are now bought in London or Paris. The traveller Bruce saw a painting of a harp near Thebes, of which he says it would be impossible to finish one to-day with more taste and elegance.

The Irish and Welsh were acquainted⚫ also with fine harps from a very early period. One is mentioned as having forty-five strings, the longest chord being three feet four inches. The use of the harp has been greatly increased by pedals, which can change it from one key to another.

The lyre is an instrument of the harp kind, having, like the harp, no finger-board, whereas the lute, guitar, and violin have. No finger-board has yet been found in any Greek lyre, but, in Egypt, lyres of the guitar kind (that is, with a neck and frets, on which the player could put his fingers, and so shorten or lengthen the strings at pleasure), have been found of an age before the time of Joseph.

The Greek lyre began with three strings, and more were added until it possessed sixteen. Even with these the music must have been thin and poor. The lyre and harp may be counted as brethren, while the lute, guitar, and violin are alike in having a finger-board. This elevates them in compass above the other two. It would be hopeless now to make music pleasing to modern ears with a lyre, even if it had sixteen strings. Perhaps the Greeks thought it prettier without a neck, and were better pleased with a graceful shape than a wide compass of sounds. But they were wrong. We do not think of the shape of the little fiddle, when we sit with our eyes shut (it may be), listening to some great violin player executing a masterpiece of Haydn or Beethoven. The lute, of which the guitar is an improved species, was learned by girls and boys until the end of the 17th century.

The guitar, gittern, zither, and other names of the same sort, come from the old Latin cithara. These are instruments of the lute family, with a body, and a neck, supplied with frets or lines in the neck, on which the player's fingers rest. The guitar has six strings, three of silk covered with silver wire, and three of catgut.

Apollo is said to have played on the violin. In this instrument there are a body and neck, but no frets. The player must learn where to place the fingers of his left hand; but it is this want of frets which makes the violin superior to all other instruments of its kind. The notes seem to melt into one another, sometimes after a most delightful fashion. The modern violin has four strings, all of gut, the lowest being covered with silver wire. Sycamore, deal, and ebony are the woods used. The best

violins are composed of no less than fifty-eight pieces. The finest samples come from Cremona. A good violin must be shaped, according to certain rules, in the form which has been found by experience the best for producing a full sound. The violoncello has a fine rich tone, and its ablest players have been Englishmen. The precursor of the violin was the viol, a fretted instrument, and played with a bow.

Let us now turn to wind instruments.

The modern organ is "a world of sounds." It is said to be a very old instrument, even in its compound state, but it has received improvements as each century has rolled on. Organs were common in churches in Charlemagne's time. He died A.D. 814. One was set up at Aix in 812, furnished with bellows. Before bellows were used, water was em ployed, it seems, to introduce air into the pipes.

Organs had a bad time of it in Oliver Cromwell's days. Very few escaped injury. The Puritans, somehow, thought them evil things. The organ in St. Patrick's, Dublin, was taken from one of the ships of the Spanish Armada, and given to that cathedral by Queen Elizabeth.

The organs on the Continent boast more stops and pipes than ours, and yet our organs are superior to theirs in several important respects.

The largest metal pipe in the York organ is 32 feet in length. That at Birmingham is 35 feet.

The breathing of the wind over reeds gave man, it is said, his first idea of the rural pipe. This became in after days, the flute, a most elegant instrument. The ancient flute was played with a mouth-piece, like the flageolet, and it had two tubes. It was used both at sad and merry meetings, at death and at dinner-time, in worship and in war. The flute of Ismenias, the Theban, cost nearly £600 sterling, and a lady, named Lamia, was the greatest flute-player of her day.

The modern flute, long called the German flute, is held level with the ground. It has sometimes as many as twelve keys. Some flutes have been made of glass. The piccolo, or fife, is an octave higher than the common flute. It is shrill and piercing, and much used in military bands.

The clarionet was invented at Nuremburg. In tone it is something like the hautboy. It has a fixed mouth-piece and a reed. The hautboy, or oboe, is made of box-wood, and has also a reed. It is about two feet in length. It has been in use for many centuries, and it was called anciently Wayghtes in our country. From this word (some say) comes our name of Waits, or Christmas minstrels.

No instrument, except the harp and earliest organ, is older than the trumpet. It is a single tube, about eight feet in length, doubled up in a