cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass -two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed: "A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"

Which all the family reëchoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

-CHARLES DICKENS.

basking: being warmed.-ram'pant: leaping.-ral'lied: teased.credu'lity: readiness to believe.-hob: a shelf at the side of a fireplace where things are put to be kept warm.—simmer: to boil gently.—phenom'enon that which strikes one as strange or unusual.-incred'ible vig'or: unbelievable strength or energy.-themes: subjects.-univer'sal : general.-achieved: performed:

"I was born," began the bird, "in a tiny lichencovered nest, which looked exactly like a little knob of bark on the limb where my parents had placed it. The egg out of which I hatched was only about the size of a pea; and in the beginning I was not as large as a June beetle."

"Were you born in South America?" asked Peter. "Oh, no; I am a citizen of the United States," replied the bird proudly. "I was born half a mile from this garden. I had never been South. So when it began to grow cool in the evenings, and a few leaves turned scarlet, and I saw birds of all kinds gathering together in the thickets, I asked another humming bird, who was older than I, what it all meant.

"Then, too, I heard the goldfinches and indigo birds talking about it, and very soon I saw the first excur

sion leave for the South: several thousand birds of all sorts-robins, swallows, bluebirds, wrens, orioles, all starting for southern resorts.

"Several birds said to me: 'Don't wait too long. Don't wait until you hear the wild geese and the snipe. They stay too late for you. You had better come

with us.""

"I don't suppose you could endure the snow, could you?" asked Peter.

"Snow! Mercy, no! I couldn't even endure a hard frost! It would kill me. I require the hottest sunshine. So you see I began to think about starting; and the very next day a dozen of us humming birds joined a big flock of assorted song birds and started just after sunrise."

"How did you know the way?" asked Peter curiously.

"To tell you the truth," confessed the humming bird, "I don't know how we birds know the way. It is something born in us that we can't explain. You know what the five senses are, don't you?"

"Yes," said Geraldine; and she began counting on her five slim fingers. "First comes sight; that makes one! Then taste; that makes two! Then hearing, three; touch, four; and smell, five!"

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'Exactly," said the bird; "but to that you must add a sixth sense, called the sense of nearness to things; and a seventh sense, the sense of direction."

"But we don't possess those senses," began Peter. "No; but we do," answered the humming bird, twittering with laughter.

Amused, yet a trifle humbled, the children looked curiously at the bird.

"It is probably this seventh sense, the sense of direction, which guides us in our journey," resumed the bird thoughtfully.

The bird scratched its jeweled head with one tiny claw. "But, to resume, we started several thousand strong on our excursion. Over Virginia and North Carolina the robins bade us good-by and dropped to earth; the bluebirds were the next to go; the chewinks left us in Florida; the orioles in Mexico; then the remaining orioles and tanagers dropped earthward over Central America, and we humming birds stopped over with them for a few days, then continued leisurely southward to Brazil."

"You must have had a great many adventures down there," said Peter.

"I should think I did," said the humming bird. "Once when I was flying around a thicket of wild geraniums in company with a dozen other humming birds, a snake struck suddenly from among the thick leaves and caught the bird beside me. That was a danger to which we were always exposed. But there was another danger worse than that."

"What could be worse?" asked Geraldine.

"Spiders!"

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Spiders? Why, spiders couldn't catch a bird, even such a little bird as you!" said Peter.

"Not these harmless spiders around here," said the bird, amused; "but there is one kind of spider in South America which spins a web strong enough to entangle and hold fast a bigger bird than I am. He's bad enough, but there is another spider, as big as Peter's fist, a furry, soft-stepping, sly creature who creeps after birds.

"One day I was sitting on a twig of a camphor bush, dozing in the heated shade, but opening one eye occasionally to see what the monkeys were about. You can never trust one of those South American monkeys. He may think it funny to make a grab at you, or he may throw a green guava at you, or he may spring on the limb where you are sitting and frighten you out of your wits."

Peter began to laugh.

"It sounds rather amusing, but it isn't really funny," said the humming bird. "I would rather take my chances with real dangers than be kept busy avoiding the practical jokes of a miserable monkey!

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'Well, as I was saying, I sat there dozing, one eye opening at times to look out for the monkeys who were frisking about in a tree near by.

"One old monkey came out along a limb and shouted to me: 'Look out!'