I

power seemed instantly to awake within me; felt lifted up, then he reached me his hand; I took it and I rose with him in the air. My extacy was so great that it awoke me. This dream was to me like a reality, for whenever since I have had a great difficulty to encounter, or a very hard task to perform, or a great sorrow to endure, I have remembered the words that I heard in my dream from the celestial being, 'You can, if you will have faith.'

Rose drew near and slipped her little hand into her mother's and looked up earnestly into her face while she was relating her dream, and although she did not speak, her looks seemed to say, I shall ever remember them too.

THE RAINY AFTERNOON.

One rainy afternoon in the month of June, four children, who lived in the country, gathered round their mother with a request that she would tell them what they should do to amuse themselves, as the weather prevented their going to walk. She named every play she could think of, but some they did not like,and some they had already played. At last she proposed that Edward, the oldest of them, who was eleven, and could read pretty well, should read a story aloud to the rest. O,' said all the children, 'we have read every story in the house over and over; I know them all by heart.' But mother,' said Edward, could not you tell us a story?' 'I do not think,' said their mother, I could make up a story in such a short time.'

'Well then, tell us something true that you have read; about some wonderful creature, or about some great traveller-do mother, please do.'

"O yes, about travellers, I like that,' said

James; and so do I,' said all the others. Their mother consented, and after thinking a few minutes began as follows:—

'There are some nations that are all travellers; they dislike cold weather so much that the moment winter begins, instead of doing as we do, trying to make themselves warm in their houses by shutting up the doors and windows, they all go off to a warmer country. They meet together, fathers and mothers, and consult, I suppose about what place they shall go to, and then they all set off. They have no geographies, no maps to guide them; no carriages, no steam boats, nothing to help them along, but they always find the right way, and travel very fast.'

Four legged travellers then, I guess,' said Edward.

'No,' said his mother, they have no more legs than other travellers have-but you must not interrupt me. Well, these travellers are such pleasant companions and are so lively and good natured, that every one likes them and gives them a welcome. Many people are even so charitable to them as to build them houses to live in, and take care that they shall not be molested. They are such an easy, sociable set

of folks that they like the houses just as well as if they were their own, and they had built them themselves. I have seen them go to an empty house and examine every part of it, and if they like it they seem to think they have a right to it, and take possession immediately, and never say 'thank you!' to any one. No one however is affronted with them, but all accommodate the strangers as well as they can, mere ly for the pleasure of their company.

The principal reason that they are such favorites, is, I think, because they are such a happy, merry set of beings; they make every one around them feel cheerful; their gaiety is continual. They rise very early in the morning; they are all good singers; and they all sing as they are at work; but their music pleases me best before the dawn of day, when they unite in their morning hymn; then just before the day dawns they all stop a second, as if they were waiting in silence for the glad light to appear, and as soon as the first ray is perceived, they all pour forth at once such a joyful song, and swell their little throats and make so loud a noise, that every sleepy head in their neighborhood awakes.'

'O, now I have caught you, mother,' said

Edward, they are martins. I wonder, when you said they were not four legged travellers, I did not think of birds, and I heard George Ellis tell of the martin house that his father put up, and how they came and looked at the house first, before they took it; and that they sing before daylight, and what a noise they make. Besides, mother, you said • little throats, and that made me know in a minute that they were birds.'

'Do tell us more about them, mother,' said little Elizabeth.

Are they martins?' said James.

'Yes,' said their mother, they are martins; and if you would like it, I will tell you more about them. Mr Wilson, whose account I have been reading today, calls them birds of passage.'

'What does that mean, mother?" said Edward.

'It means, dear, that they pass from one country to another, as becomes necessary for their comfort, when the winter is coming on in the one in which they are. The martins come here in May and disappear in August. Some people think that martins and swallows hide themselves from the cold, in hollow trees, and