That’s a bu’ful hour. The clock strikes a lot of times, and the big whistle goes, and the bell rings, and papa comes home, and dinner’s ready! The one and two hours are lost. Mamma always carries me off to take a nap. I don’t like naps. They waste time. When we wake up the clock strikes three. N’en I have on my pink dress, and we go walking or riding. And so the three and four and five hours are gone. At six o’clock Bossy comes home, and I have my drink of warm milk. N’en I put on my white gown, and kiss everybody “good-night,” and say “Now I lay me,” and get into my bed. Mamma says: “Now the sun and the birdies and my little baby are all gone to bed, and to sleep, sleep, sleep.” So I shut my eyes tight, and next you know ’tis morning! An’ ’nat’s all the time there is. MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON. OCTOBER’S PARTY. OCTOBER gave a party— The leaves by hundreds came— The Chestnuts, Oaks and Maples, And leaves of every name; The sunshine spread a carpet, And everything was grand; Miss Weather led the dancing, Professor Wind the band. The Chestnuts came in yellow, The Oaks in crimson dressed; The lovely Misses Maple In scarlet looked their best. All balanced to their partners, And gaily fluttered by; The sight was like a rainbow New-fallen from the sky. Then in the rustic hollows At hide-and-seek they played. The party closed at sundown, And everybody staid. Professor Wind played louder, They flew along the ground, And then the party ended In “hands across, all round.” _From “Song Stories for Little People.”_ [Illustration: OCT.] FIVE-MINUTE ACQUAINTANCES. (_Character Studies._) IT was a bright cool morning that we were riding down Delaware Avenue in a street car which had very few passengers. It gave me a chance to study human nature. I began the study with a very handsomely dressed boy. Jacket and collar and necktie and hair all showed that very careful people had planned for him, and that they had plenty of money to spend on him. They came into the car just after I was seated, the boy and his mother. She was tall and pale, and in deep mourning; I wondered if her husband were dead, and if this boy were the only one she had to think about or care for her. If so she was to be pitied, poor woman! for it soon became evident that the young man thought about and cared for himself. His first exhibition was to fling his heavy overcoat on his mother’s lap as he said: “Here, mamma, hold that, and give me the tickets for the conductor.” “I haven’t tickets, dear,” she said; “I shall have to buy some.” “O, well! all right, give me your pocket-book and let me buy them.” “No, dear, there is a good deal of money in my pocket-book, and some valuable papers.”