"Go on."

"All the servants."

"Excellent servants, Edwin, for the situations they are engaged to fill, but bad judges of a young gentleman's cleverness. The Rector-"

"That is cruel of you, grandmamma,” replied our conceited little friend; "you know he would not say it, because I did not get through the Commandment in the class last Wednesday evening."

"Does your papa say you are clever?"
The little fellow made no reply.
"Do your schoolfellows?"

"They are all big boys."

"Then your character for cleverness depends on the old nurse, the still older doctor, and the servants!" Edwin was again silent.

"This," observed his grandmother, "recalls to my mind one of Randy the Woodcutter's fables."

A very pretty little tree grew near a quickset hedge that was cut close by the gardener, and the hedge looked up to the tiny little tree with great respect it was so short itself that it fancied the tree was very tall; there were several brambles and net

tles also around about,, and they were perpetually praising the little tree, and increasing its vanity by their flattery. One day an old rook, the oldest in the rookery, perched on the little tree.

"What do you mean," said the tiny tree, "by troubling me with your familiarity! the idea of such a bird as you presuming to rest upon my branches!" and the little tree rustled its leaves and looked very angry.

"Caw! Caw!" quoth the rook, which signified, "Ah, ah! Why, better trees than you are glad to give me a resting-place; I thought you would be gratified by the compliment paid you by alighting on your quivering bough, and by the pleasure of my company; a little thing like you could hardly have possessed much attraction for king rook; but, indeed I only perched upon you because you are a little taller than the brambles."

The dwarf tree considered it as great an insult to be called a "little thing" as some folks do to be considered "not clever;" and he said a number of foolish words; amongst others, that "there were birds that could not fly over him."

"Ay, indeed," answered the rook, "wrens that never mount higher than a hedge !"

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The rook soon flew away caw cawing," at the folly and conceit of the little tree, and meeting the gardener "Good friend," he said, "I have just now been much struck by the conceit and absurdity of a little tree beside yonder hedge; it is rather a pretty little thing, and might be brought to something, if it were in the society of trees taller and wiser than itself; but while it has no other companions than brambles and bushes it will never try to grow tall: do, good friend, take pity on this tree, and remove it into better company;" and the gardener had a great respect for the opinion of the old rook, and went the next day with a spade, and removed the turf, and bared the roots of the conceited tree. "It is a stunted little thing," he said, "but I will place it in society that will draw it up," and he transplanted it into a plantation where there were straight and noble trees. The little sapling felt bitterly its own insignificance, and its leaves hung helplessly from the boughs; there were neither hedges, nor brambles, nor nettles to flatter its vanity-nothing to pamper its self love. There

was nothing it could look down on; the woodbine turned to the oak for support, and the wild vine clung around the ash. Thus, when the little tree derived no pleasure from looking down, it began to look up; there was a proud fierce sound amid the leaves of the noble trees, and the breezes carried the sound far and wide. The gardener had planted the little tree where it had plenty of head-room, and a very beautiful beech, which grew near it, said, "Dear me, how you are shooting!" and several of the good-natured trees remarked one to the other, that "their little neighbor seemed determined to grow." This was quite true when removed from the babble of lowbred flattery, and placed with those that were better and higher than itself, the little tree began to understand that false praise, that is, praise for what is not deserved, is the bitterest of all censures; and all his hope was, that he might grow like other trees to be useful according to his kind. One stormy night, a sheep and her lamb sheltered beneath his branches; that made the tree, now no longer little, very happy. In a few more years the gardener laid his hand on his stem and said to a gentleman who was walking with

him, "See what cultivation-which is the education of trees-does! this was a little stunted thing; but the good society of tall saplings drew it up. See what it is now!"

And another day, when there was a very high wind, the tree saw an old gray-headed rook drifting about, and he invited him to rest, and the rook did So, and the tree recognised the voice of his old friend. "I am happy to see you, grandfather rook," he said-"very happy to see you-you and yours are quite welcome to rest on or build your nests among my branches; but for you, I should have remained as I was, to be fooled and flattered by brambles now-but I have learned to let acts, and not words, tell what I am ;" and the old rook "caw cawed" again and again, and signified that he knew the time would come when that very tree would be remarked alike for its vigor and its beauty. And the old rook told the history of the tree, as old people sometimes tell histories, over and over again.

"I am sure he would be very proud if it taught you, my dear, the folly of believing that you are clever, because people who do not understand what cleverness is, say you are so."