THE summer wanes; the days grow shorter and the evenings longer, heralding the advent of Autumn, and the woods and fields are mellowing under the genial glow of the sun. All Nature is taking on a warmer tinge, gladdening the eye with its fullness of beauty—rich in the promise of autumnal harvest.

It is a sad fact, but none the less true that a great many of us go through life with unseeing eyes. Why must we be taught to see the beauties around us? What a tale might be told by the little flower that we pass carelessly by, or tread upon in our haste; if we would but listen!

There is beauty everywhere—in the early dawning when the iris-tinted morning-glories are radiant with glittering dew drops; when the sun is high overhead; when the soft twilight has enveloped the land in its mantle of calm; whether the rain is falling or whether the skies are blue and sunny beauty is everywhere.

"How strikingly the course of Nature tells by its light heed of human suffering that it was fashioned for a happier world!" Listen to the songs of happy birds. How care-free! How joyously they outpour from over-flowing little throats their God-given melodies of love and gladness! Is not the world brighter and better for their being?

Overhead in the maple a little life was struggling for being. It was only a pebble thrown by a thoughtless boy "to see if he could hit it," but the cruel act was done, and the little songster, the happy bird whose early morning matins together with the carolings of his mate, had greeted us all through the summer lay in the little nest greviously wounded. The hurried, distressed movements of his little mate told of her anxiety to do what she could for the sufferer. She seemed to know it would not be long, now,—that he would never sing with her again.

After awhile everything was still in the maple bough. It was growing dark as we softly approached the nest, and we thought the remaining bird had flown away. It had not, however, for as the inquisitive face of our little girl peeped into the leafy retreat we heard a rustle of wings, and the bird flew out from its place of repose. Perhaps she was watching the little dead form of her mate, sure that her vigil would be rewarded and that he would greet her in the morning with love as he had done for so long. Who knows?

Next day we buried the little martyr and the other bird went away. She has not returned since, but the nest still remains in the old place. The boy who had done the mischief went on his way unconscious of the thing he had done, but