Once it took weeks. Sometimes a big iceberg came sailing along right across the ship’s path. Then there was a crash. Perhaps the poor little ship went to splinters and the passengers—well, you know what happened then. Sometimes a dreadful storm came down upon the ocean and the waves went up and down, looking like mountains and valleys. Not every frail ship could stand it. There was a wreck. But in spite of all these dreadful things most passengers get there and see the sights, and have a good time and get safely home. A friend has crossed the Atlantic nearly seventy times safely. L. CASHMERE SHAWLS. IT is said that sixteen thousand looms are kept in constant employment in Cashmere, producing annually about thirty thousand shawls. The shawls are woven on rudely-constructed looms, a pair of shawls sometimes occupying three or four men a whole year in weaving. The Cashmere goat, which furnishes the material, is found in Thibet, the hair of it being fine, silky and about eighteen inches long. It takes the fleece of ten goats to manufacture a shawl a yard and a half square.—_Selected._ MAJOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. VI. WHILE the folks are gone to the fair, and we have nothing to do but watch around the place and see that no tramp gets in, we might as well have a good time, and I will tell you about my brother Nero. You must not forget, though, but keep eyes, ears and nose open while I am talking. To begin with, there was a very large family of us, or would have been if we had all been kept together. There were brothers and sisters older, and a good many younger than we. We were of the same age, and there were three others just our age, too; but they had gone to live with other families, and Nero and I were all there were left with mother. Poor, dear mother! I remember well how she used to feel when her children were taken away from her, though I was too young at that time to realize it. When we were alone she would sigh, and many a tear have I seen fall from her eyes, as she would lap us and think of her darlings whose faces she knew not that she would ever see again. She, poor mother, seemed to lavish all her love upon us after the other three were gone. Mr. Bryant, our master, had a daughter—only one—whose name was Fanny. Her father and mother seemed to think the world of her; and the thing that puzzled mother was, that Mrs. Bryant, being a mother herself, should not feel more for her four-footed friend, who was a mother also. She fed us enough, and never abused us in the ways in which so many abuse their dogs; but when it came to parting mother and children it never seemed to occur to her that a mother with four feet, and that couldn’t talk, could have any motherly feelings, or care what became of her little ones.