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wisdom and power! It is a cause of gratitude to God if you are not tried, as little Ethel and her mother, one Christmas-tide, about which I am going to tell you.

Mrs. Gray, Ethel's mother, had once been in happier circumstances. A home of plenty, with loving hearts around her, had been hers. But now one little room was all she had to live in, and her child was her sole companion and friend. With her own hands she earned their daily bread, often not knowing, when one scanty meal was finished, how or when the next would be forthcoming. This had long been her weary lot; but now, when Christmas was drawing near, with gladness for the rich, and its cold and hunger for the poor, she was laid aside altogether. Her strength failed, and she could no longer earn even the trifle she was wont to do when in moderate health.

"Ethel, dear," said Mrs. Gray, "I cannot bear that parrot in the room. When I am just beginning to doze, its shrill voice wakes me up, and it talks all day long."

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Pretty Poll! Poll wants her dinner-ha, ha, ha!” cried the parrot.

"I will see about it, Mamma,” said Ethel; "I am afraid poor Poll misses many a meal."

Soon afterwards Ethel found her way downstairs to the landlady, from whom her mother rented their room, when the following conversation took place:

“Mrs. W—, will you be so good as to allow our parrot to stay in your kitchen for a day or two? Mamma's head is so bad that she cannot bear to have Poll near her."

"I wonder," said the gruff landlady, "that folks like you should think of keeping parrots. They eat as much as a little child would do. I wonder, too, that your father, when he died, didn't leave you something better than a noisy creature like that. But I suppose I must let you bring it down; though, let me tell you, I can do very Well without either parrots or children to bother me. So now you can go up to your mother."

Ethel almost cried when she heard these harsh words, but she took the parrot downstairs, and then returned to the room at the top of the house sad and thoughtful. After a while she said, "Mamma, I am going out I shall soon be back."

After making Mrs. Gray as comfortable as their slender means would permit, Ethel was soon on her way towards the shop of a dealer in birds, which she had noticed one day when walking in a street not far off.

"I will give you three pounds ten shillings, Miss, for the parrot and the cage," said the old man. "It is, as you say, a good talker, and a good-looking one too, or I could not offer you so much."

Ethel loved Polly, but she loved her mother much more. So, with tears in her eyes and a sorrowful heart, she left both the bird and the cage on the counter, and received in return the price that had just been named. She only stayed to say, "Good-bye, Polly." "Pretty Poll!" just then shouted the parrot, the last of the pleasant greetings from the bird with which she had been familiar from her earliest childhood. The wind was cold and piercing as on Christmas-eve, Ethel, wrapping her thin mantle closely around her, went from shop to shop, laying out with care a part of the money which she held close in her hand. Christmas, with its frost and snow, seemed to have come in

good earnest. The display of meat and fruits in the shopwindows was tempting, but she did not buy any thing but what was useful and necessary. After her little purchases were all made, she hastened homewards, looking forward to a happy, if not a "merry," Christmas-day on the morrow. Her sleep that night, I doubt not, was sweeter to her than it had been for a long time before.

"Where have all these things come from?" said Mrs. Gray, as Ethel kindled a bright fire in the grate, which was not used to be so well filled with fuel, and began to set out the table with a good, though plain, breakfast.

"We are going to have a happy Christmas-day, Mamma; so try to get into your arm-chair, and sit by the fire, while I tell you all about it."

"Thank you, darling. It is pleasant to have a good fire after being so many months without one. Bring Polly up, Ethel; I should like to see our old bird again."

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"I could hardly do it," replied Ethel; "but you looked so pale and ill, that I thought I must let her go to get food and fire for you. So cheer up, Mamma, and we shall yet have a happy Christmas.' After a while the tears ceased to chase each other down the brave girl's face; and then, asking God's blessing on their unwonted good fare, mother and daughter sat down to breakfast, happy in each other's love, and hoping in the goodness of God for brighter days to come.

Why have I told you this little history? To remind you that there are some to whom the return of Christmas and NewYear's day is not a cause of joy, or an occasion of festivity. For them it is a sad time: the wind blows keen, but there is no warm clothing to keep off its blasts; the shops are gay only to make their poverty more deeply felt; plenty seems to reign everywhere only to make their own wretched homes more desolate. It is quite right that you should enjoy all the gifts with which the bountiful Providence of God may have blessed you. But, while you sit round the blazing hearth, with parents, brothers, and sisters, and kind friends, remember the poor, the

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OW many fishermen there are in the world it would be hard to say. A million of persons are supposed to be engaged in fishing in Great Britain and Ireland alone, and it is probable that not less than one in fifty of all the human race lives by labour on the water. The ancients used to call the earth "Bounteous Mother," because it supplies the corn and grass on which men and cattle feed; but the ocean seems to us to be quite as deserving of the

title. Without being ploughed or manured, with what profusion does it supply food for man! Numberless are the kinds of fish which it furnishes for our

use.

Of all the finny families, or tribes, that people the ocean, none is more useful than the herring. It is small in size, but its importance is great. It appears every year on the northwest coast of Europe, bringing abundance into all the bays, coves, and inlets of the sea, from Norway to Ireland, and from the Orkneys to Normandy. Sea - birds innumerable thin their ranks, and armies of dolphins, seals, cods, and sharks devour them by millions; yet so countless are their numbers, that whole nations live upon those which escape the attack of their natural enemies. Shoals of them are sometimes a mile long; and are so thickly pressed, that a spear cast into them would stand upright in the living stream.

by their own weight; and they need not be held down in the water by stones fastened to the lower edge, for it has been found that the herring is more easily caught in a slack net. The upper edge is hung from what is called the "drift-rope," by shorter and smaller ropes, named "buoy-ropes," to which empty barrels are attached. Thus the whole apparatus floats, and is fastened by a long rope to the ship.

Fishing for herrings takes place only during the night. The reason is that the fish strike the nets in much greater numbers when it is dark than when it is light. The men, therefore, choose the darkest nights for their work, and they also like to have the surface of the sea ruffled by a fresh breeze. To avoid running foul of each other, each boat carries one or two torches. At Yarmouth, where often several thousand boats are fishing at the same time, these numerous lights, passing to and fro in every direction, afford a most lively and brilliant spectacle. The meshes of the net are made to suit the exact size of the herring, being wide enough to receive its head as far as behind the gills, but not wide enough to

As soon as the season for the approach of the herrings appears, great numbers of boats leave the northern ports, provided with "drift-nets," about twelve hundred feet long. The yarn of which these nets are made is so thick that they sink

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