But in bright and changeful beauty shine,
Far down in the green and glassy brine.

The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift;
And the pearl shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea plants lift

Their boughs where the tides and billows flow.
The water is calm and still below,

For the winds and waves are absent there;

And the sands are bright as the stars that glow In the motionless fields of upper air.

There, with its waving blade of green,

The sea flag streams through the silent water;
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen
To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter.
There, with a light and easy motion,

The fan coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean
Are bending like corn on the upland lea;
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the wave his own.

And when the ship from his fury flies,

Where the myriad voices of Ocean roar;
When the wind god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore, –
Then, far below, in the peaceful sea,

The purple mullet and goldfish rove,
While the waters murmur tranquilly

Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.

THE LAND OF COTTON

"I wish I was in de land ob cotton;

Old times dar am not forgotten.

Look away! look away! look away! Dixie land."

DINAH, in the laundry, was singing the familiar song, as she carefully ironed the dainty aprons which were to go into Margie's trunk. Margie herself, coming into the laundry for some of the freshly ironed clothes, caught up the tune, and was still humming it when she entered the sitting room where her mother was finishing a pretty shirt waist.

เ

"Where is the land of cotton,' mother," she asked, "and how did it get its name?"

"The first question is easily answered," replied her mother," for to-morrow we start on our visit to Aunt Helen, whose home is in Mississippi, one of the cotton states. But I am going to wait until we get there to see whether you can find the answer to your other question."

After a night in the sleeper, a new experience for Margie, she awoke early, and began to look eagerly for the cotton fields, which her mother told her she would soon see.

After watching her for a while, her mother said quietly, "Haven't you found your cotton fields yet? They are all around you." Margie looked again, but she could see only fields of low, green plants with white flowers. Then she looked at her own pretty shirt waist, and wondered how one grew from the other. But her mother refused to answer questions, saying, "Wait and see.'

When they reached Aunt Helen's, Margie found that she would have many chances to find out the secrets of cotton, for Uncle Fred was the owner of