The assembly broke up, and some months passed away, when, as the elephant was quietly browsing in the woods one day, he heard a piteous moan at a little distance. Proceeding to the place from which the sound came, he there found the orator fox, caught in a trap, with both his hinder legs broken, and sadly mangled. “So,” said the fox sharply, though he was nearly exhausted with pain, “you have come to jeer at me, in my hour of trouble.” “Surely not,” said the elephant. “I would relieve your pain if I could, but your legs are broken, and there is no relief for you, but in death.” “True,” said the fox, mournfully, “and I now admit the miserable folly of those principles which I have avowed, and the practice which resulted from them. I have lived a gay life, though even my gayety has been sadly shadowed, by perpetual fear of what has now come upon me. Had I been satisfied with an honest life and innocent pleasures, I had not thus come to a miserable end. Knavery, artifice, and cunning may be very good topics with which to delude those who are inclined to be vicious, but they furnish miserable rules to live and die by.”――_Parley’s Gift._ The Vain Search. My little reader, did you ever get lost in the woods? Perhaps not; but many children have. I knew a boy and a girl, named James and Fanny, who lived upon the slope of a mountain, more than a mile from a village. A large part of the space between their house and the village, was covered by forests; but these children were accustomed to go to school and to church through the woods, and their parents never felt any anxiety about them. One morning, they set out to go to school; it was August, and the weather was warm and beautiful. In descending the mountain, they came to the brow of a hill, from which they could see a small blue lake. This was surrounded by the forest, and seemed to be at no great distance. James had often seen it before, and wished to go to it, but, on the present occasion, he could not withstand the temptation to pay it a visit. Accordingly, he set out, having persuaded Fanny to accompany him. They pushed on through the tangled woods for some time, in the direction of the lake, and at length supposed they must be very near to it, but on coming to a little eminence, and catching a glimpse of the blue water between the trees, it still seemed as distant as before. They were not discouraged, however, but again went forward for some time. At length Fanny said to her brother, that they had better return and go to school. James replied, that it was too late to get to school in season, and he thought the better way was to make a holiday of it. They would return home at the usual time, and their parents would know nothing about it.