HJALMAR H. BOYESEN (1848-95) was born in Norway, but came to America when he was only twenty-one years of age. He was professor of German at Cornell University for six years, and afterward became a member of the faculty of Columbia College. He wrote novels, poetry, sketches and essays. “Gunnar, a Tale of Norse Life," "A Norseman's Pilgrimage," "Ilka on the Hill-Top," and "Idylls of Norway" are among his best known writings. The above selection is from "The Modern Vikings," and is used by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.

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THE KITTEN AND THE FALLING LEAVES.

See the kitten on the wall,

Sporting with the leaves that fall,

Withered leaves-one-two-and three—

From the lofty elder tree!

Through the calm and frosty air
Of this morning bright and fair
Eddying round and round, they sink
Softly, slowly: one might think,
From the motions that are made,
Every little leaf conveyed
Sylph or fairy hither tending,

To this lower world descending,
Each invisible and mute,

In his wavering parachute.
-But the kitten-how she starts,
Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!
First at one, and then its fellow,
Just as light and just as yellow;
There are many now-now one-
Now they stop, and there are none.

The kitten meets the coming prey. The kitten lets it go as fast. The kitten then has it in her power again.

How many things are done by the kitten?

The kitten meets the coming prey, lets it go as fast, and then has it in her power again.

When two or more predicates are used with one subject, they form a compound predicate.

From the sentences with compound predicates, make sentences with only one predicate: I shut my eyes, clung tightly to the arch, and took the plunge.

My master works with his head, keeps his books, and manages his great mills.

Elizabeth hastened into the house, found the keg of powder, and darted out.

When the parts of a compound subject or of a compound predicate are long and differently modified, by what mark should they be separated?

Write five sentences with compound subjects.

Write five sentences with compound predicates.

SCOTT AND HIS HOME

It is among the very earliest recollections of my school-days, that the master told us youngsters, that the great author Sir Walter Scott was dead. And I think some lout of a boy down the bench, who was a better hand at marbles than he ever was at books, said in a whisper that two or three of us caught, “I wonder who he was?"

It was at a later day that we boys began to catch the full flavor of "Waverley," and the "Heart of Midlothian," and of that glorious story of battles and single-handed fights in which the gallant Saladin and the ponderous Richard of the Lion Heart took part.

We may possibly have read at that age his "Tales of a Grandfather"; and we may have heard our kinsfolk talk admiringly of the "Lady of the Lake," and of "Marmion "; but we did not measure fairly the full depth of the school-master's grave manner, when he told us, in 1832, that Walter Scott was dead.

For my part, when I did get into the full spirit of "Guy Mannering" and of "Ivanhoe," some years later, it seemed to me a great pity that a man who could make such books should die at all,—and a pity that he should not go on writing them to the latest generation of men.

That feeling, I think, I had not wholly shaken off when I wandered twelve years later along the Tweed, looking sharply out in the Scotch mist for the gray ruin of Melrose Abbey.

I knew that this beautiful ruin was near to the old homestead of Walter Scott, toward which I had set off on a foot pilgrimage, a day before, from the old border-town of Berwickupon-Tweed. I had kept close along the river,-seeing shep

herds at sheep-washing on Tweed-side,-seeing old Norham Castle, and Coldstream Bridge, and the palace of the Duke

I had slept at Kelso, had studied the great bit of ruin which is there, and had caught glimpses of Teviotdale, and of the Eildon Hills. I had dined at the drover's inn of St. Boswell's;

I had trudged out of my way for a good look at Smaillholme Tower, and at the farmhouse of Sandy Knowe, both of which you will find mentioned if you read (as you should) Lockhart's "Life of Scott."

Dryburgh Abbey, with its gloom, and rich tresses of ivy vines, where the great writer lies buried, came later in the day. At last, in the gloaming I toiled into the little town of Melrose. There is not much to be seen

there but the Abbey in its ghostly ruin. I slept at the George Inn, dreaming-as I dare say you would have done -of "Ivanhoe," "Rebecca," and border wars and "Old Mortality."

Next morning after breakfast I strolled two miles or so down the road, and by a little green foot-gate entered upon the grounds of Abbotsford.

DRYBURGH ABBEY

This was the home that Walter Scott created, and the home where he died.

The forest trees under which I walked were those which he had planted. I found his favorite out-of-door seat, sheltered by a thicket of arbor-vitæ trees, from which there could be caught a glimpse of the rippled surface of the Tweed, and a glimpse of the many turrets that crowned the house of Abbotsford.

But, pray, where were Tom Purdy, and Laidlaw, and Maida, and Sibyl Gray? For you must remember I was, in that day, fresh from a first reading of Lockhart's "Life of Scott," in