throwing about fire, the question has been asked her, “Where did you put the match after using it?”—“Upon the table,” was the reply.—“Are you sure of that, and that it was extinguished before you left it?”—“Yes, sir.”—“Susan, go and look; I cannot believe her, I am sorry to say.” Susan returns with the box of lucifers; the match, _still burning_, has been replaced in the box, and the lid put on, to the imminent hazard of setting the house on fire, had it not been fortunately discovered. My attention being drawn by this colloquy, I ask, “Grace, how can you use yourself to tell such stories?—are you not a Sunday-school scholar?”—“I forgot, ma’am.” They never own they do tell a story; they always forget, or else they boldly stick to their first assertion, let the contrary be as plain as it may. Another bad practice of theirs is, that if they have committed any error which might be remedied, or neglected to do anything which might afterwards be performed, they will never let you know, until it is too late. I had a very beautiful pair of canaries, who greeted me every morning with the sweetest of songs. I loved the little creatures—“for the bird that we nurse is the bird that we love;” and in this far distant land, away from all my kith and kin, with the exception of one for whom we are taught to forsake all other earthly ties, they were my constant companions. Months rolled on, and the fervour of a tropical sun fevered my blood, and parched my lips. I sighed for the pure breeze of my own dear land; and as my little birds warbled their sweet, clear song, memory carried me back to those pleasant fields, where, in my early days, I gathered the fragrant hawthorn, and listened to each “wood-note wild.” But, alas! a wide, wide ocean rolled between me and them, which may be very easily crossed in imagination, but not so in reality; and consequently, I had to content myself with leaving the crowded town, and trying the country air. I left my little birds to the care of a domestic, with particular injunctions to give them daily fresh seed and water. From time to time, when I saw her, I inquired after her little charge; they were quite well, was always the answer, until at length, when I returned, I found my poor little favourites dead—dead from starvation; and when I spoke about it, and asked why such stories were told me, all the satisfaction I got was—“I forgot dem.”