"Look under the cloth on the table, Charley," called his grandma from the sitting-room. "You'll find a little cake I baked for you. Don't you see it?" she asked, coming into the kitchen. "There, that one." "Oh!" said Charley, "I thought that was a loaf." Then, taking the cake in his hand, he sat on a rock at the foot of a tree a little distance from the house, and began to eat with great relish. Not far from him, and a little way from the other buildings, was the corn-barn, and at one end of its roof was a bird-house, which had been taken by two little birds for their home. Charley saw one bird come out and fly away. While she was gone, her mate kept watch at a short distance to see that no harm came to the eggs that were within. Charley noticed, that, in flying, these birds had different motions from the sparrows and robins which lived about his own home in the city, and, when he went nearer, he saw that they were swallows. As he watched them pass in and out of their house, he observed that there was something inside that opened and shut like a door. It was pressed back when the birds went in, and sprang into place again as soon as they were inside. Charley could not make out what it was, and ran to the house to ask about it. "Grandma," he said, "is there a real door to the swallows' house?" "They make one for themselves," she answered: "there is no door to the box. You know their house stands where it is exposed to all the winds, and, on some days since they came, they must have felt the cold very much. But I saw one come flying home one day with a turkey's feather in his beak, and they worked away at it very busily until they had placed it as you see. It keeps out the wind, and makes the house much more comfortable." Charley went back to look at the door again, and wished he could be small enough, for a few minutes, to go inside the bird-house, and see just how it was fastened. But he could not have his wish, and the swallows kept their secret. SUSAN CHENERY. THE GENTLEMAN IN GRAY. HUSH, little May! Snuggle here by my side: Do you see in that corner a door open wide? That's the door of a house: if you watch it a minute, The shy little owner will come and sit in it. See! there he comes; in a gray velvet hat, With his shining black eyes looking this way and that, And his velvet-shod feet: if you stir but a lash, They'll twinkle and vanish as quick as a flash. What do you fancy he does in the dark, When the fire has gone down to the very last spark, When the girls and the boys are in bed and asleep, And there's never a cat on the carpet to creep? Why, out of his doorway he walks at his ease, And brings his relations and friends, if he please, He picks up the crumbs of your candy and cake: From the tiniest fragments a feast he can make.