you know, for them to be gen'rous and keep their turkey too."

Uncle Amasa mused a moment. "That's so!" he said, ruefully, at last. "I tell ye, Polly, woman, we'll give 'em the hull turkey, an' we'll throw in the pies. I guess we won't starve on bacon an' cabbage, an' on Chris'mas I'll manage so's they can hev a turkey, 'n' we too. I love my dinner's much 's the next 'un, but I swan to massy them babies o' ourn make me feel putty small—putty small!"

And gathering up his boots and pipe, Uncle Amasa strode off to bed.

And so it came to pass that on Thanksgiving-eve George and Patty, accompanied by Uncle Amasa, not Mike, again followed the lame turkey under the hill to Uncle Jake's old place. But this time the recreant fowl was borne on their uncle's shoulders, in the huge market-basket, in company with potatoes and onions and golden pies and rosy cranberries; in short, with the party's Thanksgiving dinner.

Uncle Amasa first placed the basket on the cracked door-step, and then he and George concealed themselves in the darkness behind the brush heap, while Patty, the lightest and fleetest of the three, knocked at the door, and then ran swiftly to the common hiding-place.

A faint streak of light came from the doorway as Sally appeared holding a tallow candle aloft. A moment's silence while she stared at the basket, and kneeling by it explored the contents; then—

"Oh, mother! 'Melia!" she screamed, "it's a turkey, and it's pies, an'—oh, come quick an' see!"

There was the hurry of other footsteps, and a cry from 'Melia: "Just to look at the onions! Oh, I do love them!" and then some one upset and extinguished the candle, and under cover of the darkness Uncle Amasa drew the eager children away.

As they went up the hill together George remarked, "I'm glad she likes onions; so do I."

But Uncle Amasa drew his rough hand across his eyes, murmuring, in a choked sort of voice: "Well I swan, if between them two sets o' childern, them that gives 'n' them that takes, I don't feel putty small! Yes, I do that, put-ty small!"

BITS OF ADVICE.

BY AUNT MARJORIE PRECEPT.

A TALK ABOUT SURPRISE PARTIES.

"What's this?" said I. "Let me put on my glasses, please," as a bevy of nieces and nephews clustered around me, holding out square-shaped notes, which bore a resemblance on the outside to invitations. Invitations they were, to a surprise party at the residence of Miss Nellie E——, to be held on an appointed evening. Four or five signatures in rather scrawly hands were appended to them, and at the bottom of each billet I read a mysterious word, as, for instance, on Cora's, the word Lemons; on Kitty's, Sugar; on Rebecca's, Cake; and on Edwin's, Money. These were the articles which, it was explained, the guests were to bring with them to furnish the entertainment. Miss Nellie knew nothing about the honor in store for her, although an elder sister, who had been consulted, "did not object," said Alfred, "to our coming."

"But," added honest little Mary, "she did not seem very glad to have us."

"Children," said I, "there are several objections to surprise parties. People who wish to give parties usually prefer to name the time and select their guests themselves. It may be very inconvenient to a little girl's mother to have her house seized by a merry set of young folks, who enter it for the purpose of having a good time. The parents who are to provide lemon, sugar, and cake, or to supply the young gentlemen with pocket-money, may not wish to have their money or their goods used in that way. And, as a rule, gay evening parties, surprise or otherwise, interfere seriously with school duties, and therefore are not precisely the right things for boys and girls.

"Still, if you must surprise any one, Aunt Marjorie would advise you to politely decline these invitations, and look about for the poorest and neediest person you can find. Take the sugar, the lemons, the bread, the ham, and the little packets of pocket-money, put them safely in a basket, and set them down at the door of the crippled girl, or the lonely boy whose mother and father are dead. You will enjoy such a surprise party for months after it is over."

THE FALL OF A MOUNTAIN.

BY DAVID KER.

Some seventy years ago an old man sat at the door of his cottage in the Swiss village of Goldau enjoying the warmth of the summer sunshine, and the view of the fresh green valley dappled here and there with dark clumps of trees. All around the great purple mountains stood up against the sky, as if keeping guard over the pretty little village in their midst, with its tiny log-huts clustered beneath the shadow of the neat white church, like chickens nestling under the wing of the mother hen.

A big, florid, jolly-looking man came striding up the path, and held out his hand to the old peasant, with a hearty "Good-day, Neighbor Kraus."

"Good-day, Neighbor Schwartz. Fine weather to-day."

"Beautiful. We'll have a famous harvest this year, please God."

"I hope so, neighbor. Won't you sit down a minute? It's warm walking."

"Thanks; I will. Holloa! what's the matter over yonder?"

Right opposite them, five thousand feet overhead, towered the dark mass of the Rossberg, the highest of the surrounding mountains. Just as Schwartz spoke, its huge outline seemed to be agitated by a slight tremulous motion, like the nodding of a plume of feathers.

"Well, my friend, what are you staring at? Did you never see the trees shaking in the wind before?"

"Of course; but it seemed to me somehow as if it wasn't only the trees that shook, but the whole mountain."

"You're easily scared," chuckled the old man. "I suppose you're thinking of the old saying that the Rossberg is to fall some day. Bah! they've been saying so ever since I was a child, and it hasn't fallen yet."

Schwartz laughed, and the two friends went on talking. But suddenly the visitor started up with a look of unmistakable terror; and no wonder. His spiked staff, which he had stuck carelessly into the ground beside him when he sat down, was moving to and fro of itself!

"Good gracious! do you see that, Father Kraus? And look at those birds yonder, flying screaming away from the trees on the Rossberg! Something is wrong, say what you will."

At that moment Hans Godrel, the miller, came flying past, shouting: "Run for your lives! The stream's dried up, and that always comes before an earthquake or an avalanche. Run!"

"Pooh! I'll have time to fill my pipe again," said old Kraus, coolly producing his tobacco pouch.

But Schwartz was too thoroughly frightened to wait another moment. Down the hill he flew like a madman, and had barely got clear of the village when the earth shook under his feet so violently as to throw him down. He sprang up again just in time to see poor old Kraus's cottage vanish in a whirl of dust like a bursting bubble.

The next moment there came a terrific crash, followed by another so much louder that it seemed to shake the very sky. In a moment all was dark as night, and amid the gloom could be heard a medley of fearful sounds—the rending of strong timbers, the hollow rumble of falling rocks and gravel, the crash of wrecked buildings, the shrieks of the doomed inmates, and the roar of angry waves from the lake below, as if all its waters were breaking loose at once.

The last house of the village, on the side farthest from the Rossberg, was that of Antoine Sepel, the wood-cutter, who at the first alarm snatched up two of his children, and made for the opposite hill-side, calling to his wife to follow with the other two. But the youngest, Marianne, a little girl of six, had just run back into the house, and before her mother could reach her, the first crash came. The terrified woman