arm, she plied her broom with the other, and held out a small white hand for the reception of such charity as the passers-by might choose to bestow. The children grew up strong and hearty, in spite of their exposure to the weather at all seasons. All three of them are at the present moment sweepers in the same line of route, at no great distance from the mother, who, during the whole period, has scarcely abandoned her post for a single day. Ten years' companionship with sun and wind, and frost and rain, have doubled her apparent age, but her figure still shews the outline of gentility, and her face yet wears the aspect and expression of better days. We have frequently met the four returning home together in the deepening twilight, the elder boy carrying the four brooms strapped together on his shoulder. The sweeper does better at holiday seasons than at any other time. If he is blessed with a post for a companion, he decks it with a flower or sprig of green, and sweeps a clear stage round it, which is said to be a difficult exploit, though we have never tried it. At Christmas, he expects a double fee from his old patrons, and gets it too, and a substantial slice of plum-pudding from the old lady in the first floor opposite. He decks the entrance to his walk with laurel and holly, in honour of the day, and of his company, who walk under a triumphal arch of green, got up for that occasion only. He is sure of a good collection on that day, and he goes home with his pocket heavy and his heart light, and treats himself to a pot of old ale, warmed over a fire kindled with his old broom, and sipped sparingly to the melody of a good old song about the good old times, when crossing-sweepers grew rich, and bequeathed fortunes to their patrons. INSECT WINGS. Animals possess the power of feeling, and of effecting certain movements, by the exercise of a muscular apparatus with which their bodies are furnished. They are distinguished from the organisations of the vegetable kingdom by the presence of these attributes. Every one is aware, that when the child sees some strange and unknown object he is observing start suddenly into motion, he will exclaim: 'It is alive!' By this exclamation, he means to express his conviction that the object is endowed with _animal_ life. Power of voluntary and independent motion and animal organisation are associated together, as inseparable and essentially connected ideas, by even the earliest experience in the economy and ways of nature.