mother, and she was a poor widow. He was early sent into the world to earn a few shillings in a lawyer's office, and was allowed, as his pocket-money, sixpence a-week. The microscopes in an optician's window set him musing, and an old copy of "Evenings at Home," purchased at a book-stall (the wellknown origin of many such a fire), kindled his smouldering passion for observation. Flies could be had for catching, and a small lens, costing a few pence, opened up to him the world of wonders, for he had "eyes to see and a heart to understand."

We are tempted at times, as parents, to think that the little that we are able to do for our children is sadly out of keeping with their necessities and our desires. We shall do well at these seasons to remember the influence that our parents had upon us. We might exchange many encouraging experiences. In our own case, for instance, we believe we were moved to select our hobby through our mother, who used to tell us thrice-told tales about her school-girl's life, and how she spent the long summer mornings before breakfast in drawing. There were occasional red-letter days of painting, when in the midst of her home-work and children, she wist not what she did, for while she was painting her picture, she was determining the current of the leisure of a whole life. The fulness and safety of our life as a boy and a youth we are persuaded is to be attributed mainly to our passion for the pencil, and though after all we cannot be said really to draw, we have often utilized the gift we have, by pressing it into our service for lectures, and

the diagrams and cartoons which have been the result have served to supplement what we had to say. During the last few years we have been carried away by our hobby into comparative composition, and we flatter ourselves that we are all the happier in the choice of our subject, and in our lines of thought, and light, and shade, and colour.

A boy that is found making a hobby of an easel is very likely to be found standing at it as a man.

TWIGS FOR NESTS.

VIII. THE PARENT'S PATTERN.

"The voice of parents is the voice of gods,

For to their children they are heaven's lieutenants;
Made fathers, not for common uses merely
Of procreation (beasts and birds would be

As noble then as we are), but to steer

The wanton freight of youth through storms and dangers, Which with full sails they bear upon, and straighten

The mortal line of life they bend so often.

For these are we made fathers, and for these
May challenge duty on our children's part."

SHAKSPEARE.