- - - - - - - One day when Susie was visiting her great-aunt, she found in one of her old books an excellent rule. It was this: "Aim to make courtesies not an article of dress to put off and on, but a part of ourselves--something that is always with us." BOB'S FIRST PRAYER. ONE summer they carried May Vinton to a quiet place by the sea. From the windows of her room she could watch the unceasing roll of the waves, she could mark the incoming and outgoing tide; she grew to love the sea and did not seem to miss the coming and going of friends which she enjoyed so much in her own home. But she missed opportunities for helping others. At least she did at first, but she was not long in finding some one who needed her. It was the boy from the fisherman's little cottage whose acquaintance she first made. He came every morning with fish for her breakfast, and May, calling to him as he passed her window with his basket, soon found out that he lived in the little low-roofed building which she could just see quite a long way down the shore; and she found out that there were several children in the family and that the father went out every day in a boat after fish. She gathered that while they were not suffering for food and clothes, they were still quite poor, and that the children had never been to school and were very ignorant of the knowledge gained from books. The boy could tell her all about the fishing business, about the ways of the old ocean, he knew where to look for the prettiest shells and the finest seaweed. He could tell what the winds and the shifting clouds portended as to the weather, but not a letter of the alphabet did he know. [Illustration: SHE COULD WATCH THE WAVES FROM HER WINDOW.] "Would you like to learn to read?" asked May. The little fellow was not sure, but he did want to hear a story, and so she began that way, interesting the boy in a story. He soon became a regular visitor. Leaning upon the window-sill he would listen to his new friend as she talked, telling him of things outside the little world which he knew. At length she said, "To-morrow will be Sunday; suppose you bring your sister and brother for a little while in the afternoon and we will have a little Sunday-school." "Sunday-school! What's that?" "Come and see." "Can I bring Tommy Britt?" "You may bring four besides yourself." And so Miss Vinton began a little Sunday-school down there by the sea with five scholars. You who have so often heard the sweet old story of a Saviour's love cannot imagine what it was to these ignorant children to hear it for the first time. You to whom the words of the prayer which Christ taught us have been familiar from your babyhood, cannot know how strange were the thoughts and words of that prayer, nor what a hold upon their imaginations the idea of asking anything of an unseen being took.