A nurse, when out of the room, should never fancy that she knows what the bell rings for, but should answer it instantly; most serious consequences have been known to follow from the delay of a very few minutes, as from fainting, fire, and many other causes.

In passing a bed, be careful that your clothes do not catch the curtains; the nervous sensibility of a sick person makes the smallest motion of the curtains, or bed, or chairs, or tables, to be very distressing.

Supply the fire gradually, by putting on a lump or two of coal now and then with your hands, to avoid the harassing noise of mending or of making up the fire; and always have ready a little dry wood or chips, to revive a fire suddenly, as it is often necessary to let it go too low for fear of awaking the patient.

Wear no creaking shoes, nor rustling garments, nor have any loose pins or needles about you.

For the general welfare of her charge the nurse must pay attention to her own ease and accommodation, as forming an important ingredient in the welfare of the patient.

It were well if she could generally eat her meals out of the sick room, to vary the scene a little for herself, and it is also better for the patient.

She should avoid heating food or liquors; fatigue (and especially sitting up at night) is feverish work in itself. The diet and drink should be of a light and cooling kind. Let the nurse get fresh air when she can.

When going to sit up, do not eat a heavy supper. Keep tea, or cocoa, in the room, hot all night. After being washed and dressed in the morning, a slice of cold meat will do a nurse no harm. Take a little rest after dinner if you can; if there is no opportunity of going to bed, the body may be kept upright, and the feet raised on a sofa, and thus much refreshment will be obtained. Rest should be got when there is a good opportunity, at any time of the day. Clothe yourself warmly and neatly when to sit up, though without any stiff dress, or tight ligatures. Provide some additional articles, such as a shawl, or flannel gown. A nurse should always be particularly

neat.

Keep things in their places, or have the necessary changes made at proper times, so that the patient may

never be prevented from sleeping or dozing, by having things taken out of the room at a time when quietness is particularly desirable.

It is important to have some signal to show those out of the room when the patient is asleep, or particularly desirous of being quiet: such as a long piece of paper, or goosequill, put through the keyhole of the door.

When an attendant is long confined in the room, by fearing to disturb the patient by opening the door, it is well to have some plan agreed upon for relieving the anxiety of friends below stairs or for giving any needful directions. For this purpose a billet may be written and slipped under the door.

The nurse should not waste her strength, when there is no occasion. For, if she rests when she can, she will be the better able to go through her duty, and thus render the best service to her charge.-Anon.

THE TEAR OF SYMPATHY.

How lovely shines the liquid pearl,
Which trickling from the eye,
Pours in a suffering brother's wound
The tear of sympathy!

Its beams a fairer lustre yield
Than richest rubies give,

Golconda's gems, though bright, are cold-
It cheers, and bids us live.

Softer the tones of Friendship's voice,

Its word more kindly flows,
More grateful in its simplest sound

Than all which art bestows.

When torturing anguish racks the soul,
When sorrow points its dart;
When Death, unerring, aims the blow
Which cleaves a brother's heart;

Then, Sympathy! 'tis thine to lull
The sufferer's soul to rest;

To feel each pang, to share each throb,
And ease his troubled breast.

Tis thine to aid the sinking frame;
To raise the feeble hand;

To bind the heart by anguish torn,
With sweet Affection's band.

'Tis thine to cherish Hope's fond smile,
To chase Affliction's gloom,
To mitigate the pains that wait
Our passage to the tomb.

Then give me, Heaven, the soul to feel,

The hand to mercy prone;

The eye with kindly drops that flows
For sorrows not my own.

Be mine the cause of Misery's child—

Be mine the wish sincere,

To pluck the sting that wounds his breast,
And heal it with a tear.-Anon.

INSTINCTIVE LOVE OF THEIR YOUNG IN THE BRUTE AND FEATHERED CREATION.

THE more I reflect on the instinctive affection of animals for their young, the more am I astonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this affection more wonderful than the shortness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her turn the terror of the yard in proportion to the helplessness of her brood; and will fly in the face of a dog or a cat in defence of those chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive before her with relentless cruelty.

This affection quickens the invention and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus, a hen just become a mother, is no longer the placid bird she used to be; but with feathers on end, wings hovering, and clucking note, she runs about like one possessed. Mothers will throw themselves in the way of the greatest danger to defend their young. Thus a partridge will tumble along before a sportsman, in order to draw away the dogs from her helpless covey. In the time of nest building, the most feeble birds will assault the most rapacious. All the swallows and martins of a village are up in arms at the sight of a hawk, whom they will persecute till he leaves the

district. A very exact observer has often remarked, that a pair of ravens nesting in the rock of Gibraltar, would suffer no vulture or eagle to rest near their station; but would drive them from the hill with amazing fury. If you stand near the nest of a bird that has young, she will not be induced to betray them by any inadvertent fondness, but will wait about at a distance with meat in her mouth for an hour together. The fly-catcher builds every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house. A pair of these little birds had one year inadvertently placed their nest on a crooked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that followed; but a hot sunny season coming on before the brood was halffledged, the reflection from the wall became insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not affection suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to hover over the nest all the hotter hours, while with wings expanded and mouths gaping for breath, they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring. A further instance I once saw of notable sagacity in a willow raven, which had built in a bank in my fields. This bird a friend and myself had observed as she sat in her nest, but were particularly careful not to disturb her, though we saw she eyed us with some degree of jealousy. Some days after, as we passed that way, we were desirous of remarking how this brood went on; but no nest could be found, till I happened to take up a large bundle of green moss, carelessly thrown over the nest, in order to deceive the eye of any impertinent intruder.

White's Selborne.

DIVINE IMPRESS.

THERE's not a tint that paints the rose,
Or decks the lily fair,

Or streaks the humblest flower that grows,
But heaven has placed it there.

At early dawn there's not a gale
Across the landscape driven,

And not a breeze that sweeps the vale,
That is not sent from heaven.

There's not a grass, a single blade,
Or leaf of lowest mien,

Where heavenly skill is not displayed,
And heavenly wisdom seen.

There's not a tempest dark and dread,
Or storm that rends the air,

Or blast that sweeps o'er ocean's bed,
But heaven's own voice is there.

There's not a star whose twinkling light
Illumes the distant earth,

And cheers the solemn gloom of night,
But mercy gave it birth.

There's not a cloud whose dews distil
Upon the parching clod,

And clothe with verdure vale and hill,
That is not sent by God.

There's not a place in earth's vast round,
The ocean deep or air,

Where skill and wisdom are not found,
For God is every where.

Around, beneath, below, above,
Wherever space extends,

There heaven displays its boundless love,
And power with mercy blends.-Sandon.

ON AUTHORITY OVER CHILDREN.- -No. II.

NEVER punish when the child has not intentionally done wrong. Children are often unjustly punished; things which are really wrong are overlooked, and, again, punishment is inflicted on account of some accident, when the child is entirely innocent; such a procedure not only des'troys in the mind of the child the distinction between accident and crime, but is, in itself, absolutely iniquitous. It is not unfrequently the case that a nurse or governess who does not intend to be guilty of injustice, neglects to make a proper distinction between faults and accidents, A child may be careless, and so criminally careless, as to deserve punishment; in that case it ought not to be pu