ALLAN HUME'S BROKEN. LEG.

BY MRS. BATTERSBY.

HE name of the little boy who is lying in one of the pretty cots of the Children's Hospital at B

is Allan Hume. He does not seem to care nearly so much for his plate of biscuits, as for the drink of milk which his kind nurse is holding to his lips, for he is still feverish; but his appetite is returning, and very soon he will be strong enough to venture home, to help his widowed mother to earn her bread. He was carrying a parcel of work from the shop which gave her employment when he met with an accident; a careless little girl threw a piece of orange peel on the flags as she was passing by in a cab, and Allan's foot slipped and he fell heavily. When a kind gentleman went to take the poor boy up, he found Allan's leg was broken, and he called a cab and drove with him at once to the Children's Hospital. Allan tried to keep from crying, only begging the gentleman to tell his poor mother where he was, and asking anxiously after the bundle of work, which was quite safe, as an honest boy had picked it up and handed it to the gentleman, Mr. Curtis, who took charge of Allan; but the agony was so great that when the poor boy was carried into a room to have his leg set he fainted, and when the pain awoke him the kind young doctor said, "It's all over, my boy, you may rest now ;" and after his leg was carefully bound up in a stiff starch bandage, so that he could not move it, he was carried to his nice cot, and left to look about

him.

There were several other cots in the room, which was large and sunny, and the table was decked with fresh flowers, while a glass vase in the centre contained several gold fish, which were swimming merrily about-and in the windows were flower-pots with pretty "Baby" roses in full bloom; then all around the walls were hung pictures and texts painted in beautiful bright colours, and the kind lady nurse was stepping softly from one tiny cot to another, soothing some little ones who were fretful from pain, and giving books and toys to others. Allan thought it was a very pleasant place to be ill in, and when Mrs. Hume came to see her boy next day, she was quite surprised to find him so cheerful, and very thankful to kind Mr. Curtis for taking him at once to such a place, though the poor woman said she would find it very hard to get on without her little "right hand," or to keep the children quiet without his care in her narrow, stifling attic room.

Meantime Mr. Curtis had discovered an old and very respectable servant in the poor widow, of whom for more than ten years he had lost sight, and finding her in sad poverty he offered to let her live in a nice gatehouse, which happened to be vacant; she was to keep the place neat and clean, and help in the dairy and poultry yard, and the children were to attend a good day-school, while Allan was to learn to be a gardener. what a joyful surprise it was to the boy, who could not help feeling rather sad at the prospect of leaving the nice bright. hospital, and being shut in with three young children into a miserable lodging where there was little room to play and into which the sun never shone, though

Oh !

as he loved his mother dearly he was anxious to get well for the sake of helping her. Mr. Curtis sent the widow and her children to the gate-lodge the day before he called for Allan, who knew nothing of his plan, and after passing through the streets of B- the driver turned his horse's head towards the country, and in a few minutes stopped at a gateway, and on Mr. Curtis calling 'gate," out ran both mother and children to welcome Allan, who could hardly believe his eyes, and thought he must be dreaming when his kind friend told him the pretty lodge was to be his future home.

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Mr. Curtis often employed Allan in making up bouquets of flowers for the Children's Hospital, and this was always a pleasure to the grateful boy, while the younger children collected baskets of primroses, and cowslips, and bluebells, to send with the garden flowers, hoping they might help to brighten up the wards by their sweet presence, and please other sick children in the spot where Allan had been so kindly treated, and so tenderly nursed after his accident.

THE LOBSTER
HIS SON.

AND

AN OLD FABLE IN A NEW DRESS. BY J. REDFIELD SMITH. LOBSTER-SO the story goes, Whose race, as everybody knows, Was never famed for gracefulness Of manner, motion, or address, But waddles on with awkward gait In almost any way but straight: Backward, or sidewise, or oblique, As if Dame Nature in a freak

Of fancy would reveal the notion
Of perfect awkwardness in motion.
A lobster thus addressed his son:
"My sands, dear child, are almost run,
I'm growing old, as you may see,
And am not what I used to be;
This shell, which, like a coat of mail,
Of old, has ne'er been known to fail,
Must soon (since lobsters too must die)
A coffin for my dust supply;
But ere I pay the debt of nature,
Like every other mortal creature,
Some good advice to you I'd give,
And bless you ere I cease to live."
The little lobster waved his claw
As if to answer, "Go on, pa."
"Well then, my son, I wish to note
One evil habit you have got;
You walk with such an awkward gait !
I really wish you'd travel straight."
At this the son a circuit took
In many an uncouth sprawl and crook,
As if he'd bid his father see
How like a lobster he could be.
"You awkward booby!" quoth his sire,
"Your shambling gait provokes my ire!
You stagger like a drunken man,
And act as clownish as you can.
Whene'er you travel 'go ahead,'
Like Davy Crocket, for, though dead,
Sure it would grieve his honest shade
To see such wretched progress made;
Observe the soldiers march, my son,
And when you walk, go right straight

on."

Then young Crustaceus made reply,
"Dear father, since you soon must die,
I own that your most gracious will
It is my duty to fulfil.

Have I not ever sought to be
Obedient and kind to thee?
And copied every act from you,
To learn what lobsters ought to do?
Then, father, hear your faithful son,

SEASIDE TREASURES.

By MRS. BATTERSBY.

H, what fun! Harry and Ethie are off for a morning's fishing in the little rock-pools left by the tide, and they are going to fill all the glasses they can coax from their landlady on their return home with their "treasures," which I fear she will be very likely to call "dirt," and think the owners "real plagues and no mistake" for bringing them into the house.

Harry and Ethie's first performance was to take off their shoes and stockings, which they left on a stone, and then to wade about barefoot, thrusting their net into every small crevice they could find, and now they have captured a little green crab, which, frightened out of its wits, was scuttling away over the sand as fast as his queerly-shaped legs could carry him; he was quickly popped into a tin can which they had brought with them, and they set to work again, this time to try to take off a limpet from the rock, but the more they pulled and struck it,the more the shell fastened on, so they had to leave it, though much to their surprise Ethie's spade hit accidentally against another specimen and knocked it off at once, the fact being Number One was on his guard, and Number Two was not; they had no difficulty in securing half a dozen bright orange shells from the same rock, and in one of the pools were some pretty little fish swimming about very merrily, but every time Harry tried to catch them they got through the meshes of his net; at last Ethie spread her pocket-handkerchief inside the net, and

two or three little captives were secured, though I cannot say the handkerchief was much improved by the process. So on they went, capturing sea anemones and cockles, and "winkles," and a host of other live creatures, till their can was a "moving mass," and they found it was time to return home, but when Harry and Ethie had reached the place where they left their shoes and stockings, no stone was to be seen, for the waves had crept up and covered it, and the shoes and stockings were bobbing up and down, sometimes quite out of reach, and sometimes near the dry sand. Oh, what a state the children were in every time the waves brought a shoe or a stocking near, Harry would rush into the water to secure it, and once a big wave carried him off his feet and threw him down, and only for Ethie running in to save him he might have been bobbing about too. At length all were safe, and shortly afterwards a wet little girl and a very wet little boy, were seen painfully dragging up a heavy can to the cottage, and the "treasures," big and little, were inspected; the big ones got a good scolding from nurse for their carelessness, and as the landlady had only a few glasses to spare for the wonders the rest of the unhappy creatures were left in the tin can on the window-stool, where, when they became hungry, they ate one another up, till the largest crab and the shell-fish were the sole survivors, and the landlady pitched them out of the can one day (fortunately close to the sea), indignantly exclaiming that "her best tin can was ruined by the sea water which had rusted it through and through."

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