"But, Edward," persisted I, putting my hand over his book to make him stop reading, "how came those things where they were found? and the balloon to ascend just at the proper moment? and who or what was it screaming so? Neither you nor Dr. Rutherford had left the yard except to go into the house." "No, my dear; but you remember Dick Kirby came over just after dinner, and he would not ask any better fun than to fix all that." "Humph!" said I, "men are not so stupid, after all." Edward looked more amused than flattered, which shows how conceited men are. JENNIE WOODVILLE. ON THE STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. The last thing which the student learns, the last thing which the world, that universal student, comprehends, is how to study. It is only after our little store of facts has been laboriously accumulated, after we have tried path after path that promised to take us by an easy way up the Hill Difficulty, and have abandoned each in turn,--it is only when we have attained a point somewhere near the top, that we can look down and see the way we should have come, the one road that avoided unnecessary steepness and needless windings, and led by the quickest and easiest direction to the summit. The knowledge that we have thus gained, however late to profit by it ourselves, should at least be valuable to others. But, unfortunately, as Balzac has said, experience is an article that no one will use at second hand. When the great teachers of the world, who have been its most patient scholars, shall go to work to teach us how to study, and when we are content to learn, then we shall all be in a fair way to become sages. But, in the mean time, there are two things we must apprehend--truisms both of them, but, like all truisms, better known theoretically than practically. The first is, that we must not use a microscope if we want to study the stars; and the second is, that we must beware of having a fly between the lenses of our telescope, unless we wish to discover a monster in the moon. If a discriminating public would not consider it an insult, one might add, in the third place, that it is useless to look for lunar rainbows in the daytime.