one for her pains; while Harry stuck his elbows firmly on the table, crossed his legs, bit his lips, frowned, and drew a long breath, and a straw from the heap. Presently, he was so successful that he had a little pile of straws he had taken off without shaking the others. Then Lucy, in her excitement, knocked his elbow, and away they all went on the carpet. She was very sorry for the misfortune, and picked them all up but our unlucky friend of the corn-field, who had tumbled under the leg of the table, out of sight.

"I am one short," said Harry, "I know I had nine, and here are only eight!"

"Never mind," cried Lucy, eagerly, "take another out, it is only a straw. We can get plenty more to-morrow. What does it signify? Why make a fuss about a straw!"

Our poor friend lay miserable and flat under the table. "It's what I always knew," said he, “What does it matter? Its only a straw!"

66

Only a straw, Lucy!" replied her Papa; only a straw, and what then? Suppose you

were building your house, and were just one brick short-only a brick-and yet your mansion would not be complete without it ?"

"Only we don't build houses with straws, Papa!" said Lucy, rather pertly.

"Perhaps, not; but the birds do, Miss Ignorrance," replied Papa, "and even we human beings, if we don't build the walls with straw, are glad to make use of it for the roofs. Thatched roofs are shady and pleasant as well as pretty, and keep out the heat of the summer sun, as well as the cold of winter frosts, more effectually than slates or tiles."

"But they are getting old-fashioned, Papa," said Lucy; "people don't use thatched houses now: even the cottages are tiled!"

"More's the pity, my dear, I think,” observed her Mamma, who had been listening to the conversation, "and perhaps one reason why they are not so common now, is because straw is getting too scarce.'

Our friend under the table pricked up his ears at this, as things seemed taking a more favourable turn for himself and his family.

"Yes," continued Papa, "I dare say you would laugh at me if I tell. you that your 'Jack Straws' are members of a wide-spread family, that have employed the population of whole villages and factories!"

"What do you mean, Papa ?" asked Harry, "what other use is straw put to, besides thatch and bedding for cattle ?"

"It serves as bedding for man, too, my boy," answered his father, "witness the straw bed of the poor homeless beggar, in some barn or out-house!"

"And indeed, Harry, it serves richer folks as well," said Mamma, "for most people use straw mattresses under their wool and feather beds !"

"Then," said Lucy, eagerly, "It makes beehives-pretty round bee-hives, and the comfortable chairs and stools named after them; like yours, Mamma !"

Our friend the Straw felt quite charmed at the vision of the glories of his race opening before him, and he managed to edge out one end, so that Harry espied him, and picked him

up.

"I've a little more respect for you, my friend,' said Harry; "but, Papa, what do you mean about whole villages and factories."

"Ask Mamma, there," answered their Father, "how she saw our friends made use of in our Suffolk home!"

Mamma readily responded to the appeal, and described how the straw was cleaned, bleached, flattened, and cut in little machines, and then plaited in long pieces, which were afterwards sewn together and formed into hats and bonnets. She told them how she had seen little children standing at the cottage doors, and plaiting away in the quickest manner possible, almost without the necessity of looking at their work, so expert were they. And then Papa narrated a visit he had paid to a large manufactory where they made straw into paper.

"Indeed, Harry," said his Papa, "I think that is really the most important use that straw is put to now-a-days. The little common wheatears, as they grow in the fields among poppies and corn-flowers, little dream of what their

future destiny is to be, and that after a while they will be made into nice paper, upon which letters may be written that will travel to all quarters of the globe; or on which, as newspapers, the intelligence of great towns will be printed, to travel perhaps through the length and breadth of the land !"

Who now so proud as our friend the Straw : he swelled with importance, and stuck up more stiffly than ever.

"I, too," he cried, "may perhaps be one of of these wonderful messengers of good. I, even I, may form a part of some message that will thrill the heart of a great empire, and rouse to life a whole people!"

But our friend, having been permitted to see far off the glories of his race, was not destined to realise in his own person such an exalted mission. Harry and Lucy played spillikins with him till they were tired of the game, and then Mamma took possession of him and his brothers, and made use of them for her gauffering-board. And finally, Papa coming home very warm and