Harry."

"Yes, Mother; and then I can talk a little now and then to you, I suppose."

"Sometimes, Harry; and I doubt not that Frank will let you come, now and then, to his closet. I don't want this closet to separate you; but, on the contrary, to be the means of making you better friends, because it will help Frank to be a better boy, and so always to set you a good example."

"It is rather hard, Mother, for a boy to set a good example. I don't think I ever did such a thing in my life."

"Mother," said Harry, "you told us that you had been translating a little story from a French book, to read to us some evening. We shall have time enough to-night, for you know you promised to let us sit up till the clock strikes twelve; so we can talk, and read, and tell stories too. There will be time enough for all, before Mr. Old Year goes out and Mr. New Year comes in."

Mrs. Chilton consented. Frank placed her little stand by her, with the German lamp upon it, in the way she liked to have it, and she read as follows:—

THE BIRTHDAY.

Near the coast of Northumberland, at a little distance from the land, you can just see rising up a group of little islands, rocks scattered without order, that grow in number at low water; you may count as many as twenty of them, whose sharp, menacing crests seem to defy the returning waves.

Nothing can be more desolate than the appearance of the little Farne Islands; formed of rocks barely covered with a thin vegetation, surrounded by precipices, they seem accessible only to sea birds, who take refuge there in the tempests.

The Island of Longstone is at the head of the group, and serves as a sort of vanguard, and is, perhaps, the most dangerous of all. A gloomy collection of black rocks, full of crevices worn by the action of the winds, the waters, and the tempests, it does not nourish a single plant; not an atom of soil adheres to its surface; it is naked and barren; its steep sides bristle with cockle shells which encrust the rock.

The interior is still more desolate than the exterior; it is a succession of black hillocks cut by narrow ravines into which the sea rushes, roaring and furious, at high tide, detaching from the rocks fragments which it grinds, rounds into pebbles, and deposits pell-mell with the mud and sea weed in some deep crevice, where it again will come to seek them in the storm, roll them over once more in its foam, and drag them off to its profound caverns.

While our feet were wounded by the rocks, above our heads hundreds of sea birds hovered screaming, and among them we discovered the sea-gull by its shrill and harsh scream.

Notwithstanding these horrors, this island is not a desert. At the summit of the rock, there rises a round tower where every evening a light is kindled, so contrived as, at intervals of some seconds, to throw a brilliant light upon the points where the fretted waves rage and boil round a hidden rock, and to light the dangerous channel which separates the island from its sister isles, and to warn the pilot to avoid by every means the perilous labyrinth.

The keeper of the lighthouse did not live alone in this wild place; his wife followed him there; his family increased, and the cradle has rocked again and again.

Grace Darling, the eldest of the seven children, has just reached her twenty-second year, and all the family are rejoicing at the festival, for every anniversary is religiously kept by the little company that animates the solitude of Longstone.

Every one is gone out to seek something by which he may take his part in the festivity, and prepare a surprise for the well-beloved sister. The mother remains at home kneading a nice cake to gratify the appetite of the little marauders.

"Mother, Mother!" cried John, who returned the first; "see what a superb lobster the rising sea has brought up and left in the crevice of a rock, which I call my fish-trap. Might not one say that the sea knew that it was Grace's feast day?"

"I have only some shrimps," said William; "but they are very fine ones, I hope. I took them, with a net at the end of the little creek."

"Imprudent boy!" said their mother; "your father has told you a hundred times not to venture to fish on that side of the island; the rock is too steep, and the water is more than a hundred fathoms deep."

"Yes, but, in a turning, there is a little platform which I have shown to my father, and he has consented to my going there at low water. Then I know the rock, and the sea knows me; neither of them wish to hurt me. You have more reason for scolding Jenny; she is not afraid of any thing; she climbs like a cat all along the crevices to collect sea weed, which she burns in order to enrich the hole which she calls her garden, and to cultivate—what? nothing that one can eat—some good-for-nothing flowers, which grow only in consequence of shelter and great care."

"And you count it for nothing to be able to present to Grace a rose like that?" said Jenny, who just then came in bringing a rose of a dull white, surrounded by vigorous leaves of a dark green. "What a pleasure to have been able to keep it till now, even here, and to see it blossom so exactly at the right time. I do not regret the pains I have taken with it, I assure you."

"And you are right," replied her mother; "for Grace will know well how to appreciate the pains you must have taken to give her such a pleasure; and I, too, approve of the forethought you have discovered, which will make you one day a good housewife. Let your brothers fish and hunt; let it be your care to plant and ornament our solitude with your little smiling, blooming nook of earth."

"But where is Grace?" asked John; "why is she not assisting you as usual, Mother?"

"Because I refused to let her do so. She knows well that this day will be her festival, and I have sent her up stairs to her father, whilst we are here together preparing for her."

"James and the two little ones are missing," said William.

"Only James," replied his mother. "The two little ones are with Grace, who is giving them a lesson in reading. I do not see why James stays away so long; it is nightfall, and his father has always desired him to take care not to be overtaken by a fog far from the house."

"Suppose I go after him," said William.

"There he comes, there he comes!" cried John and Jenny.

The boy came in, in truth, all out of breath.

"I have just succeeded," said he, "in making up the dozen." As he said this, he put upon the table a dozen of wild eggs. "The last came near costing me very dear," said he; "it was laid half way down to the Black Man's; you know, William, the great rock which looks like a giant sitting down; I had climbed, on my knees, and I had only one more step to take, when a great big wave—a coward!—behind struck me, and would have carried me away if I had not clung with all my might to the great Black Man."

"Foolish child," said the mother, "could you not foresee the return of the tide?"

"Not at all, not at all. It came before the hour. There are enormous waves in the channel, and the sea growls as when it is going to be angry."

"That will not prevent us from passing a merry evening," replied William; "come, let us go quickly to work."

He hastened to set the table, and assist his sister in putting on the plates, while his mother broke the eggs, beat up the omelet, and drew out the cake from the oven.

All was ready, and William rang the bell to call the father and Grace to supper, who usually remained in the upper part of the tower of the lighthouse.

Grace loved to contemplate the indented coast of Northumberland, and to see with her naked eyes, of a clear day, the little hamlet where she was born; it was not that she regretted the fertile soil, the verdure, the wood she had seen when she was little. No! the Isle of Longstone, did it not contain in its rocky bosom what was dearest to Grace?