But, nevertheless, they could not understand how any person not a sailor could be a competent navigator, though the simple fact is that navigation has not necessarily anything to do with seamanship. The schooner was hove to for two hours, because Thornton explained to the mate that he desired to keep her in one place until he ascertained her position. At 11.15 the boy took his second sight and went below to work out his problem. His father stood over him in wonder while he filled a sheet of paper with sines, cosines, secants, and such things. At last the computation of the position was completed, and Thornton had to ascertain the course to be steered. He got the Captain's chart, and, marking the ship's place on it, went into the sufferer's cabin and showed it to him. "I guess you must be about right, boy," said the Captain. "In settin' the course, you want to get well out here." And the Captain indicated with his finger certain dangers that must be given a wide berth. Thornton set a safe course, and, going on deck, told the mate to get the schooner under way S. 1/2 W. The men sprang to their work willingly, and in a very few minutes the _Three Elms_ was cleaving her way over a comparatively quiet sea. For three days Thornton continued his labors as navigator, and on the morning of the fourth he announced that the Highlands of Navesink ought to be sighted from the masthead at eleven o'clock. A sailor was sent up to look out for them. The hour of eleven came, and he was silent. The mate and the crew looked gravely at the anxious boy. Could he have been in error? Five minutes passed, and the men began to talk angrily. Then the man aloft cried: "Land, ho! It's the bloomin' old Highlands! I know that lump!" [Illustration: A CHEER WENT UP, AND THE MATE SHOOK HANDS WITH THORNTON.] Then a cheer went up, and the mate shook hands with Thornton. Before supper the schooner was in tow of a tug, going up the Swash Channel. "Well, mother," said Thornton, "do you think astronomy is such a useless thing now?" And she was obliged to admit that she had never thought of it as the foundation of navigation. Thornton is at present the assistant to the government astronomer of a European country, and is receiving a comfortable salary. HELEN'S CHOICE. BY ANNIE HAMILTON DONNELL. Helen set the baby down on the floor, and the pan of clothes-pins beside her. "There, now, we'll see," she said, gayly. She got down, too, and arranged the pins in an orderly little circle astride the pan's edge. They went way round, and then Helen, with a sweep of fingers, sent them all clattering into the pan again. The baby crowed in wide-mouthed, toothless glee. "_You_ do it now, baby--see, just as I do," Helen said.