The sun-dial seems too classic an object, and too serious a teacher, to bear a jesting motto. This sober pun was often seen:-- LIFE'S BUT A SHADOWE MAN'S BUT DUST THIS DYALL SAYES DY ALL WE MUST. [Illustration: Sun-dial in Garden of Grace Church Rectory, New York.] The sun-dial does not lure to "idle dalliance." Nine-tenths of the sun-dial mottoes tersely warn you not to linger, to haste away, that time is fleeting, and your hours are numbered, and therefore to "be about your business." In a single moment and at a single glance the sun-dial has said its lesson, has told its absolute message, and there is no reason for you to gaze at it longer. Its very position, too, in the unshaded rays of the sun, does not invite you to long companionship, as do the shady lengths of a pergola, or a green orchard seat. Still, I would ever have a garden seat near a sun-dial, especially when it is a work of art to be studied, and with mottoes to be remembered. For even in hurrying America the sun-dial seems--like a guide-post--a half-human thing, for which we can feel an almost personal interest. [Illustration: Fugio Bank-note.] The figure of a sun-dial played an interesting part in the early history of the United States. In the first set of notes issued for currency by the American Congress was one for the value of one third of a dollar. One side has the chain of links bearing the names of the thirteen states, enclosing a sunburst bearing the words, _American Congress, We are One_. The reverse side is shown on this page. It bears a print of a sun-dial, with the motto, _Fugio, Mind Your Business_. The so-called "Franklin cent" has a similar design of a sun-dial with the same motto, and there was a beautiful "Fugio dollar" cast in silver, bronze, and pewter. Though this design and motto were evidently Franklin's taste, the motto in its use on a sun-dial was not original with Franklin, nor with any one else in the Congress, for it had been seen on dials on many English churches and houses. In the form, "Begone about Your Business," it was on a house in the Inner Temple; this is the tradition of the origin of this motto. The dialler sent for a motto to place under the dial, as he had been instructed by the Benchers; when the man arrived at the Library, he found but one surly old gentleman poring over a musty book. To him he said, "Please, sir, the gentlemen told me to call this hour for a motto for the sun-dial." "Begone about your business," was the testy answer. So the man painted the words under the dial; and the chance words seemed so appropriate to the Benchers that they were never removed. It is told of Dean Cotton of Bangor that he had a cross old gardener who always warded off unwelcome visitors to the deanery by saying to every one who approached, "Go about your business!" After the gardener's death the dean had this motto engraved around the sun-dial in the garden, "Goa bou tyo urb us in ess, 1838." Thus the gardener's growl