marvelous change which had come over her husband. She had known him as a kind man; he had been that when she married him, and for a few months afterwards. She had heard him speak pleasantly to Norm, and show him much attention; he had done it before they were married, and for awhile afterwards; but there was a look in his face, and a sound in his voice now, such as she had never seen nor heard before. "It isn't Decker," she said in a burst of confidence to Nettie. "He is just as good as he can be; and I don't know anything in the world he ain't willing to do for me, or for any of us; and it is beautiful, the whole of it; but it is all new. I used to think if the man I married could only come back to me I should be perfectly happy; but I don't know this man at all; he seems to me sometimes most like an angel." Probably you would have laughed at this. Joe Decker did not look in the least like the picture you have in your mind of an angel; but perhaps if you had known him only a few weeks before, as Mrs. Decker did, and could have seen the wonderful change in him which she saw, the contrast might even have suggested angels. Nettie understood it. She struggled with her timidity and her ignorance of just what ought to be said; then she made her earnest reply: "Mother, I'll tell you the difference. Father prays, and when people pray, you know, and mean it, as he does, they get to looking very different." But Mrs. Decker did not pray. BLUE BELLS. [_A Flower Legend._] TWO cherubs were playing near Heaven's gate, Which an angel had left ajar; They were toying each with small silver bells, Whose soft chimes could be heard afar. As they tossed in play these musical toys, Some rolled through the half-open gate; And down from the high heavens blue they came Through the clouds at a quickening rate. And when at last they fell down to this earth, And rested in green fairy dell, Where each one had fallen there sprang a flower, The beautiful, graceful Blue Bell. For as they came down through the azure skies, They caught its deep beautiful blue; And still in the earthly flower is seen The very same heavenly hue. And the fairies can hear the low sweet chimes As they gently sway to and fro; Perhaps it's an echo of those soft tones Which the cherubs heard long ago. LYDIA HOYT FARMER. POEM FOR RECITATION. TOMMY'S FOURTH OF JULY. YESTERDAY, mother, she said to me, "Now, Tommy, my man, it soon will be The Fourth of July, and I dread the noise-- I dread the freedom of reckless boys, "The ringing of bells, the firing gun, Torpedoes and crackers, from sun to sun; I wonder if when those grand old men Declared for Freedom, it could have been