"See, darling mother!" he said, "the dear Savior did send the raven! Perhaps, one day, He will make us good enough for Him to send the angels." Then the simple family all knelt down and thanked God from their hearts, and Gottlieb added one especial bit of his own of praise and prayer for his kind Hans, of whom, on account of his grim face and rough voice, he had stood in some dread. "Forgive me, dear Lord Jesus," he said, "that I did not know how good he was!" And when they had eaten their hasty Christmas feast, and the mother was smoothing his hair and making the best of his poor garments, Gottlieb said, looking up gravely in her face: "Who knows, mother, if Hans is only a raven now, that the good God may not make him, his very self, the angel?" "Perhaps God is making Hans into the angel even now," replied the mother. And she remembered for a long time the angelic look of love and devotion in the child's eyes. For she knew very well the cathedral choir was no angelic host. She knew she was not welcoming her boy that morning to a haven, but launching him on a voyage of many perils. But she knew, also, that it is only by such perils, and through such voyages, that men, that saints, are made. (_To be continued._) HOW THE PONY WAS TAKEN. BY C. W. One morning, last August, Jimmie Wood was sitting on the gate-post making a willow whistle, when a remarkable wagon, drawn by a lean, gray horse, came up over the hill. The wagon looked like a big black box with a window in it. In front was a man driving, and this man seemed rather peculiar too. He had a long, pointed mustache and very curly hair. He was not a cigar and candy peddler, nor a patent medicine man, nor a machine agent, for Jim could recognize any of these in a minute. The curly-haired man stopped directly in front of the gate. "Good morning," said he. "Morning," answered Jim, shutting up his knife. "My name's Leatherbee," continued the curly-haired man. "Is it?" said Jim, unconcernedly, and then slid off the gate-post and started for the house. "Hi boy!" Jim turned quickly. "Ask your pa whether he wouldn't like to have his house took!" called out the stranger. Jim nodded, and went across the grass-plot meditating upon what the man meant by proposing to take the house. His father was in the sitting-room writing a letter. "Papa," said Jim, leaning up against the table, "there's a man out there in the road that wants to take the house." "Wants to take the house!" exclaimed Mr. Wood, making a blot in his astonishment. "Yes," continued Jim, "and he has the funniest-looking wagon you ever saw in your life." "Ah!" said Mr. Wood, "I understand now; he wants to take some photographs, I suppose. Well, tell him I don't want any," and Mr. Wood went on with his letter, while Jim proceeded across the front yard again. He noticed his pony over in the orchard. A thought struck him, and he wheeled around and went back in the sitting-room again in some haste.