Doctor Wainwright was an easy-going as well as a hopeful sort of man, but he was an honest person, and he knew that creditors have a right to be insistent. It distressed him to drag around a load of debt. For days together the poor doctor had driven a long way round rather than to pass Potter's store on the main street, the dread of some such encounter and the shame of his position weighing heavily on his soul. It was the harder for him that he had made it a rule never to appear anxious before his wife. Mrs. Wainwright had enough to bear in being ill and in pain. The doctor braced himself and threw back his shoulders as if casting off a load, as the mare, of her own accord, stopped at the door. [Illustration: "HERE I AM,YOUR MIDDLE DAUGHTER, DEAREST." The house was full of light. Merry voices overflowed in rippling speech and laughter. Out swarmed the children to meet papa, and one sweet girl kissed him over and over. "Here I am," she said, "your middle daughter, dearest. Here I am." [TO BE CONTINUED.] A SURE CURE. Poor Bobby's sick! Dear little lad, He's got a pain; it hurts him awful bad. Just see his face! In every line of it a trace Of how he suffers from that pain. What's that? His plate is back again For buckwheat cakes? Oho, I see! 'Tis nearly nine o'clock. Ho!--hum!--tell me What is this woe That lays poor Bobby low Each morning just at school-time, yet so fleet is? Is it the olden time Nineoelockitis That as a boy I had so frequently? That comes at half past eight, and seems to last From then till nine, or say a quarter past, And then departs, and leaves him all the day With twice the strength with which to go and play? Oh--well--if this be so I'll worry not. The symptoms well I know. Only, instead of cakes to cure his ills, Take him a spoon and fill it up with squills, And by to-morrow I doubt he'll suffer from his present sorrow. A STRANGE DISCOVERY. BY HUBERT EARL. Napoleon and his army of soldiers were marching across the Alps in Switzerland before descending into Italy upon that famous campaign in which all Italy bowed low to the French conqueror. Up the long steep slopes the soldiers toiled in the shadow of the frowning and overhanging cliffs. Here and there patches of bare rock appeared, where the snow had been swept off by the fierce gusts of wind. For miles the army was strung along the roads, and wearily the men walked as they struggled with the heavy cannon. These cannon were mounted on improvised sleds, and the soldiers pulled them over the snow with ropes. At times one of the sleds would slip and tumble over a precipice, carrying with it a number of the men who were dragging it along. The air was bitterly cold, and many of the soldiers died on the road, or from weakness fell off the cliffs, to be dashed to pieces on the rocks below.