his way he came across a little crab whose shy movements attracted his attention.

"Are you in trouble?" asked the Child gently. "Can I help you?"

The crab crept out of his hiding place on being thus 5 courteously addressed, and, planting his two fore legs

round a pebble, looked up at the Child and opened his lips so wide that all his body seemed a mouth. Then clearing his voice gravely, he said: "There is no living in the sea in these times; the winds and waves are so 10 inconsiderate and violent I don't know what will be the end of it. Yesterday morning I had found a most

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convenient apartment, well plastered and furnished, so as to suit me to perfection. I had spent hours in hunting for such a lodging; but a large wave broke over me and dashed my house to pieces on the shore."

"What do you mean by finding your house?" said the Child. "Most of "Most of my friends here build their own." "That is not my profession," said the crab; "none of our family were brought up to anything of the kind. Of course it is necessary that some people should be 10 masons and carpenters, but we have all our work done for us."

"What do you do, then?" asked the Child.

The crab looked a little embarrassed, but he was too well-bred for this to last, so he replied: "We eat, and 15 drink, and observe the world; we travel, and occasionally fight, and criticise what other people do. I assure you it is no idle life; so few people understand their own business."

The Child did not altogether like the tone of the crab's 20 conversation, and he replied rather warmly: "I don't know what you mean. All my friends-the cockles, the whelks, and the limpets-do their work a great deal better than I could, and I like to watch them."

Very likely," said the crab in a cool tone, for he was 25 accustomed to good society; "the whelk family do indeed

build very comfortable little houses, quite suitable for people who travel as much as we do."

"You live in empty whelk shells, then!" said the Child. "We move from one such residence to another," said the crab. "When we outgrow one, we leave it and 5 hunt for another, and occasionally, when we find one still tenanted and cannot make the creature within understand our wants, especially if he begins to talk any nonsense about the rights of property and the claims of labor, we turn him out."

"That is stealing," said the Child indignantly.

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"Excuse me," said the crab, "we call it conquest. We are soldiers on our own account-free companions. But I must be on my travels again; to-morrow, if you will call, we shall no doubt be able to renew our acquaintance 15 under more agreeable circumstances."

And the soldier crab withdrew his long legs from the pebble and marched away.

"I do not call you a soldier," said the Child; "you fight for no one but yourself. I call you a housebreaker and a 20 thief"; and he rose with a flushed face and went on his way lost in thought.

Abridged.

cockles, whelks, and limpets: small shellfish. Cockles have scalloped shells, whelks spiral, and limpets hat-shaped shells.

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THE LIGHT OF STARS

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW was born at Portland, Maine, in 1807. He was graduated from Bowdoin (bō'd'n) College, and at the age of twenty-one became professor of modern languages in the same college. Afterwards he held a similar position at Harvard. His poetry is justly 5 popular not only in America but in Europe. Most English-speaking boys and girls know "The Children's Hour," "The Village Blacksmith," "The Skeleton in Armor," and "Hiawatha." Longfellow died in 1882.

The night is come, but not too soon;

And sinking silently,

All silently, the little moon

Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven
But the cold light of stars;

And the first watch of night is given
To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?

The star of love and dreams?
Oh no! from that blue tent above
A hero's armor gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,
When I behold afar,

Suspended in the evening skies,
The shield of that red star.

O star of strength! I see thee stand
And smile upon my pain;

Thou beckonest with thy mailèd hand,
And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light
But the cold light of stars;

I give the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars.

The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,
And calm, and self-possessed.

And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,
That readest this brief psalm,
As one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.

Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,
Know how sublime a thing it is

To suffer and be strong.

Mars: the god of war in Latin mythology. — star of love: Venus.