"Yes," said Mr. Crowder; "you may think it amazing that a very ordinary remark should connect 'The Parents' Assistant' with the city of Babylon, but so it was. In the course of my life I have noticed coincidences quite as strange. "I spent many years in the city of Babylon, but the wonderful Hanging Gardens interested me more than anything else the great city contained. At the time of which I have just spoken I was one of Nebuchadnezzar's gardeners, but not in the humble position which I afterward filled in Ireland. I had under my orders fifteen slaves, and my principal duty was to direct the labors of these poor men. These charming gardens, resting upon arches high above the surface of the ground, watered by means of pipes from the river Euphrates, and filled with the choicest flowers, shrubs, and plants known to the civilization of the time, were a ceaseless source of delight to me. Often, when I had finished the daily work assigned to me and my men, I would wander over other parts of the garden and enjoy its rare beauties. "I frequently met Nebuchadnezzar, who for the time enjoyed his gardens almost as much as I did. When relieved from the cares of state and his ambitious plans, and while walking in the winding paths among sparkling fountains and the fragrant flowerbeds, he seemed like a very ordinary man, quiet and reflective, with very good ideas concerning nature and architecture. The latter I learned from his frequent remarks to me. I suppose it was because I appeared to be so much older and more experienced than most of those who composed his little army of gardeners that he often addressed me, asking questions and making suggestions; and it was one afternoon, standing by me as I was at work in a rose-bed, that he said the words which were spoken to me about twenty-four centuries afterward by Maria Edgeworth. Now, wasn't that enough to startle a man?" [Illustration: NEBUCHADNEZZAR AND THE GARDENER.] "Startle!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder, "I should have screamed. I should have thought that some one had come from the dead to speak to me. But I suppose there was nothing about Maria Edgeworth which reminded thee of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon." "Yes, there was," replied her husband: "there was the same meditative expression of the eyes; the same reflective mood as each one began to speak, as if he and she were merely thinking aloud; the same quick, kind reference to me, as if the speaker feared that my feelings might have been hurt by a presumption that I myself had not developed and improved.