father, never forgetting it once; and how God was pleased, and rewarded them. Then he made the little fellow hold up his hand and say after him: 'Unto this day they drink none, but obey their father's commandment.' Then he explained that the paper the child had signed was a promise that he would obey his father's command and never touch liquor. 'I won't, favver,' the boy said; 'I'll 'member.' And he looked very earnest. But in two or three minutes he was playing with the cat; and his mother couldn't feel that he really understood much about it.

THE LITTLE FELLOW LOOKED ON.

"It was three years afterwards, and the little boy was seven years old—a beautiful child. One winter his mother was very sick, every one thought she would die; she was so low that she didn't know her own little boy, and she couldn't bear the least noise; so her boy was taken to his auntie's, and stayed there for weeks. One evening he was in the parlor with his uncle, there were three or four gentlemen there, and pretty soon cider was brought in. The little boy sat beside a gentleman who offered him a drink of cider from his glass; the boy refused politely; and the gentleman thinking he was timid, coaxed him. Then his uncle spoke up: 'That young man has never tasted cider, he tells me.' At this they all laughed; it was a very unusual thing in those days to find a child seven years old who had never tasted cider; it sounded almost as strange as it would to say now that one had never tasted water.

"The gentleman said that accounted for his not wanting some; that he did not know how good it was; so he urged him to just try a swallow, and kept coaxing until at last his uncle said, 'Try it, my boy; if you don't like it you need not take any more.' 'No, sir,' the boy said, 'I don't want to try it!' Well, then his uncle thought he was rude and disobedient and ought to be made to mind; so he said: 'I command you to take a swallow of it, my boy, and I am to be obeyed, you know.' What did that little seven-year-old baby do but get up in the middle of the floor, with his eyes flashing, and his cheeks glowing, and shout out in a loud strong voice: '"Unto this day they drink none, but obey their father's commandment," and I don't either. I promised, I did; and I never will; not if you whip me to death.' Then he burst out crying, and ran out of the room."

"Good for him!" said Rollo.

"Oh, hurrah!" said Harold.

"I am so glad!" said Marion. "I wonder what his mother thought then, if she ever heard of it. Did she get well, Grandma?"

"Yes, she got well; and was a proud and happy mother when she heard the story. But that is only the beginning of it. I saw that boy when he was a young man and came home from college as handsome as a picture, and I heard his father say to him: 'Well, my boy, they tell me most of the young men use liquor more or less; how do you get on with them?'

"And he looked around with his bright laughing eyes and said:

"'I'm all right, father; to this day I drink none, but obey my father's commandment. That pledge of mine ought to be printed in gold on my tombstone when I die, for it has held me in the midst of many temptations.'

"And there his mother thought he was too young to understand!"

And Grandma Burton actually wiped the tears from her eyes, though she was smiling yet.

"Grandma," said Marion, "what was that boy's name? You haven't spoken his name once."

"I guess something," said Ralph eagerly. "Wasn't his name Mott, Grandma?"

"Robert Mott Burton, that was his name, my darlings."

"Our own uncle Mott!" said astonished little Sarah.

"Then that's what makes him such a red-hot temperance man now, isn't it?" said Rollo. "Didn't he begin early, though?"

A CHRISTMAS STORY.

THE LONELY LITTLE GIRL.

"O, how nice! your grate burns lovely."

After the new hat, necklace and bangle bracelet had been duly admired, Tom and Gracie, his little cousin, sat down in the great arm chair to enjoy the bright fire and have one of their chats.

"Who are you going to make happy to-day?"

"Me? How can I make anybody happy?"

Tom smiled as he replied, "Do you not know that you make us all happy, just by being here?"

"O, I thought you meant something different."

"So I did, little one. There are a great many people in this city who have very little to make them happy, and you and I who have so much may make at least one heart joyful on this glad Christmas day, do you not think so?"

"If I knew how," said Gracie.

"We will try to find a way. I see you are quite dressed up this morning," referring to the dressing-gown. "Do you see my new one?"

"Yes; you are the one that is dressed up."

"I know a poor invalid to whom I mean to give the old one, and there is a little girl who has not a comfortable dress nor a pair of shoes."

"Nor any nice hat and bracelet?"

"No, I doubt if she has any hat or even a hood. I