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. * i. 14 THE PRESBYTERIA For the Children QUESTIONINGS. Gnrl is ill heaven, and does He know When I am doing wrong? Yes. child. He does; He looks at thee All day and all night long. Clod is in heaven, and would He hear If I should tell a lie? les, 11 tnou saiust it eer so low He'd hear it in the sky. God is in heaven, and will He hear A feeble prayer like mine? Yes, little child, thou needst not fear; He's listening now to thine. God is in heaven, and can I go To thank Hint for His care? Not yet, hut love Him here below, And thou shalt praise Him there. WHO STOLE THE MUD MARBLES? By Hilda Richmond. "That George Cline is the meanest boy that ever' 1itr?w1 I" :i.. -1_ .!_ ? I?vu . IMUI UV.UIIU tlll$?lWV. VV nat ClU yoil UllllK, mamma? He stole all our mud marbles that we had in the sun to dry." "Yes, and he told a story, too," added Margaret. "After he stole them all he said he didn't." "Children," said their mamma in a grieved tone, "don't you know it is very naughty to say such things? He could make all he wanted in a little while. I am sorry my little boy and girl are so hasty." "But, mamma, he did take them," cried the children together. "He was the only person in the yard while we were taking our naps, because Mark saw him. He just did it to tease us." Their mamma said nothing more about the lost marbles, but told the children to make some new ones and bring them up near the house. Very soon Gerald and Margaret were having a fine time rolling balls in their hands, and presently on a clean board was a long row of them ready for the sun to bake. This time they put them close to the window, and their mamma prom iscd to watch them as she sat sewing. Grandma came in with a new game just then, and they wanted to play it on the sitting-room floor. "How showery it is!" said grandma, as the big clouds rolled up overhead. "This will bo the third shower for the day." But Gerald and Margaret never heard the rain as they played with the new game. Even when mamma called they were so busy that she had to speak twice. "Come here, children," she said. "I want to show you something." 1 hey ran to the window just in time to see one of the marbles fall to pieces, when pelted by big drops of rain, and sink down in a little, dirty heap on the board. Then another and another followed, till the last one was just a patch of mud on the board. Then more rain came, and soon the board was washed clean and white. "I wonder!" cried Margaret with round eyes. "I know that was the way, for it rained while we N OF THE SOUTH. March 3. l"9<>9were asleep," said Gerald. "Just as soon as the rain is over, may we tell George how naughty we were?"" he asked penitently. "I'm so sorry." Mamma nodded, and in a little while the three were playing together happily. Now whenever either is hasty, some one only has to say, "Mud marbles," and everything changes. The children never forgot the lesson, and they say they never will. PINKY'S PREFERENCE. Most wild animals stoutly resist all our well-intentioned efforts to bring them up in dooryard ways, and take to the woods again with the first opportunity. . I have tamed squirrels; hut sooner or later every one of tllAlll 1-* ^ ~ 1 1 * * * * ........ ..ao c?c?tjjcu u) me wiuis. l have never known but one wild animal that wanted to he domesticated, that refused to stay in the woods when taken there; and this was a little 'possum named from the color of his long nose, Pinky. * He was one of a family of nine that I caught, several springs ago. and carried home. In the course of a few weeks his brothers and sisters were adopted by admiring friends; but. Pinky, because he was the "runt," and looked very sorry and forlorn, was not chosen. He was left with me. I kept him?for his '1 '1 r~-i i-?~ ?v..v.. u?u?dim icu mm on milk until lie caught up to the size of the biggest- mother-fed 'possum of his age in the woods. Then I took him down to the old stump in the brier patch where he was.born, and left him to shift for himself. Being thrown into a brier patch was exactly what tickled "Bre'cr Rabbit"' half to death, and any one would have supposed that being put gently down in his home brier patch would have tickled this little 'possum still more. Not he, I went home and forgot him. But the next morning, when breakfast was preparing, what should we see but Pinky curled up in the feather cushion of the kitchen settee fast acWr. He had found his way back during the night, had climbed in through the trough of the pump-box, and had gone to sleep like the rest of the family. He gaped and smiled, and looked about him when he awakened, altogether at home, but really surprised that morning had come so soon. He took his saucer of milk under the stove as if nothing had happened. We had had a good many 'possums, crows, lizards, and the like. So, in . spite of this winsome show of confidence and affection Pinky was borne away once more to the briers. He did not creep in by the pump-box trough that night. Nothing was seen of him, and he passed quickly out of our minds. Two or three days after this I was crossing the backyard, and stopped to pick up a big calabash gourd that had been on the wood pile. I had cut a round hole, Hfimpwliat lorfror -1 ? 1' ? *' .u.8w man a s??ci uuimr, in me gourci, intending to fasten it up for the bluebirds to nest in. It ought to have been as light as so much air, almost; but instead it was heavy,?the children had Piled it with sand, no doubt. I turned it-over and peeked into the hole; and, lo! there was Pinky. How he managed to squeeze through that opening I don't know; but there he was, sleeping ^way as soundly as ever.?St. Nicholas.