One of the interesting households of the period was that of Sir Thomas More, the famous Lord Chancellor who was executed in 1535. More lived at Chelsea, and of his happy home there Erasmus, who knew him well, has given the following charming account:—“More,” he says, “has built, near London, upon the Thames, a modest yet commodious mansion. There he lives, surrounded by his numerous family, including his wife, his son, and his son’s wife, his three daughters and their husbands, with eleven grandchildren. There is not any man living so affectionate to his children as he, and he loveth his old wife as if she were a girl of fifteen. Such is the excellence of his disposition, that whatsoever happeneth that could not be helped, he is as cheerful and as well pleased as though the best thing possible had been done. “In More’s house you would say that Plato’s Academy was revived again, only whereas in the Academy the discussion turned upon geometry and the power of numbers, the house at Chelsea is a veritable school of Christian religion. In it is none, man or woman, but readeth or studieth the liberal arts; yet is their chief care of piety. There is never any seen idle. The head of the house governs it, not by a lofty carriage and oft rebukes, but by gentleness and amiable manners. Every member is busy in his place, performing his duty with alacrity; nor is sober mirth wanting.” Speaking of More’s home life in his “Short History of the English People,” Mr. J. R. Green says:—“The reserve which the age exacted from parents was thrown to the winds in More’s intercourse with his children. He loved teaching them, and lured them to their deeper studies by the coins and curiosities he had gathered in his cabinet. He was as fond of their pets and their games as the children themselves, and would take grave scholars and statesmen into the garden to see his girls’ rabbit-hutches or to watch the gambols of their favourite monkey.” (_To be continued._) THE SHEPHERD’S FAIRY. A PASTORALE. BY DARLEY DALE, Author of “Fair Katherine,” etc. CHAPTER XIV. When Jack was gone, Mrs. Shelley insisted on Fairy’s going to bed, for the child was worn out with fatigue and excitement, and she and John watched by Charlie’s couch in turns through the short summer night, which, short as it was, seemed all too long when spent in anxiously watching for a change which did not come. Once, and once only during the night, did Charlie open his eyes and murmur, “Where am I?” but before the shepherd, who was sitting by him, had time to answer, he had again relapsed into unconsciousness.