"To-night will be a stormy night,
You to the town must go;

And take a lantern, child, to light
Your mother through the snow."

"That Father! will I gladly do,
'Tis scarcely afternoon,

The minster clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon.

At this the father raised his hook
And snapped a fagot band,
He plied his work, and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe;
With many a playful stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time,
She wandered up and down,
And many a hill did Lucy climb,
But never reached the town.

The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide,
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.

At daybreak on a hill they stood

That overlooked the moor,

And thence they saw the bridge of wood A furlong from the door.

And now they homeward turned, and cried,
"In heaven we all shall meet!
When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downward from the steep hill's edge
They tracked the foot-marks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone wall.

And then an open field they crossed,
The marks were still the same;
They tracked them on, and never lost
Till to the bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank
The footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank,

And further-there were none.

Yet some maintain, that to this day
She is a living child,

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.

It is very curious to see how many different kinds of mouths there are, each fitted for a different kind of food, the different ways of taking the food, and the different places where the food is found.

The human mouth has a good set of tools for biting and chewing, with the hands to wait upon it, to prepare and bring it food. The rough tongue, the broad cutting teeth of the horse, with his long neck, fit him for browsing in the pastures, and gathering up his food from the earth. The mouth of a chicken is just like a pair of nippers, long, sharp, and bony, to pick up the corn and little seeds.

The Woodpecker's mouth has not only to find the food, but it has to work pretty hard for it. It feeds upon the worms and insects which live in the hollows of old trees, and they have to be taken out some way or other. For this purpose it has a long, sharp, hard bill like a mallet, and with this it chisels and taps and taps; and very likely was busy getting its dinner, when the poet went out in the woods and heard him, and wrote the song,

"The Woodpecker taps the hollow beech tree" which has made the woodpecker a famous little bird ever since. He keeps on working until a hole is deep enough to reach the poor worm, when he darts out his tongue and seizes it. This tongue is made on purpose; for it is long, sometimes darted out two or three inches beyond the bill, and at the end it is sharp and long, and set with little teeth like a saw, only running backwards like the barb of a fish-hook. There is now no escape for the worm; it is hooked and drawn into the woodpecker's mouth, and made a meal of.

All this is very curious; yet quite different is the Butterfly's mouth; for the butterfly eats honey, and the flowers sometimes stow their honey down in little cells, quite out of the way. But the butterfly has an instrument to work with; its tongue is hollow inside like a tube, made of a great many little rings, moved by little muscles. When it is not in use, it is coiled up, so as not to be in the way; but when it is wanted it is unrolled and darted down into the bottom of a flower, and the honey sucked up through it, very much as boys sometimes suck water through a straw.

As we study the mouths of other insects, and other birds, and fishes, we will find this wonderful fitness of the mouth for obtaining the proper food. These different mouths could not have "happened so"; they could not have made themselves could they? Does any body really suppose they could have come by chance? The study of mouths shews us a degree of skill and contrivance, which could only belong to a great wise contriving mind, and it forms a pleasing chapter in the great book of God.

Child's Paper.

"Do tell us a story, Mamma," said Harry, one day after a short lesson on the lion, "I like the stories." "And I," said Bessie, "like to hear the good parts in an animal's character."

"Very well," said their Mamma, "I hope to please both of you. Dr. Burchell, who lived in South Africa, tells us that one bright day he was travelling with a caravan along the side of a river, whose banks were covered with tall mat-rushes, when his dogs began barking furiously at some concealed object, and soon a lioness and an enormous black-maned lion came into view. The lioness bounded away under cover of the rushes, but the lion came forward and stood still, gazing quite steadily, as if to say, 'who are you that have dared to intrude on my privacy, and disturb my royal slumbers ?' He was but a very few paces distant; many of the party were unarmed, and you may be sure they did not feel very easy under the lion's gaze; but those who had guns put their fingers on the triggers that they might be ready to shoot; and Dr. Burchell himself, who was standing on foot, having given his horse to some one in charge, held his pistols in the same manner. The brave dogs rushed in between the men and the lion, still barking, but he took no notice of them, until two who had ventured too far came close to his feet, when he slightly moved his paw, and in an instant these two were still in death. That terrible paw can break a horse's back with one stroke and when he killed these dogs without turning his head, or even looking at them, Dr. Burchell could scarcely perceive how it was done. The men fired. A ball entered the lion's side, and the blood began to flow, but still he remained fixedly looking. They now expected each moment that he would spring. But instead of doing this he walked calmly away. In this instance, do you think he was either cruel or a coward?"

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