20. O, and proudly stood she up! Her heart within her did not fail; And told him all her nurse's tale. 21. He laughed a laugh of merry scorn; He turned and kissed her where she stood : "If you are not the heiress born, And I," said he, "the next in blood— 22." If you are not the heiress born, And I," said he, "the lawful heir, Be-trothed', engaged to be married; 22 Law-ful heir, heir by birth. Summary:-This poem is a genuine ballad-a simple story in verse, with dialogue. The points to be noted are, Lady Clare's honesty and self-sacrifice, when she discovered her humble birth, and the wrong she had done her cousin; and Lord Ronald's constancy, showing that he had not loved Lady Clare for her lands, but for herself. The sudden awakening of the filial instinct in the daughter is also very touching. Exercises-1. Parse and analyze: This poem is a genuine ballad. 2. Use as Nouns and Verbs-blow, scorn, nurse, mind, lie. 3. Make Sentences containing-hide, hied; hie, high; hoard, horde; holy, wholly. 4. Write a short description of Harvest Time under the heads-time of year, crops, reapers, benefits of a good harvest. ECONOMY OF TIME. 1. A celebrated Italian was wont to call his time his estate; and it is true of this as of other estates of which the young come into possession, that it is rarely prized till it is nearly squandered. Habits of idleness once firmly fixed cannot be suddenly thrown off, and the man who has wasted the precious hours of life's seed-time finds that he cannot reap a harvest in life's autumn. Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine; but lost time is gone for ever. 2. In the long list of excuses for the neglect of duty, there is none which drops oftener from men's lips, or which is founded on more of selfdelusion, than the want of leisure. People are always cheating themselves with the idea that they would do this or that desirable thing, "if they only had time." It is thus that the lazy and the selfish excuse themselves from a thousand things which conscience dictates to be done. Now, the truth is, there is no condition in which the chance of doing any good is less than in that of leisure. 3. Go, seek out the men who have done the most for their own and the general good, and you will find they are-who? Wealthy, leisurely people, who have abundance of time to themselves, and nothing to do? No; they are the men who are in ceaseless activity from January to December. Such men, however pressed with business, are always found capable of doing a little more; and you may rely on them in their busiest seasons with ten times more assurance than on idle men. 4. There is an instinct that tells us that the man who does much is most likely to do more, and to do it in the best manner. The reason is, that to do increases the power of doing; and it is much easier for one who is always exerting himself to exert himself a little more, than for him who does nothing to rouse himself to action. 5. Give a busy man ten minutes to write a letter, and he will dash it off at once; give an idle man a day, and he will postpone it till to-morrow or next week. There is a momentum in the active man which of itself almost carries him to the mark, just as a very light stroke will keep a hoop a-going, while a smart one was required to set it in motion. 6. The men who do the greatest things do them not so much by fitful efforts, as by steady, unremitting toil-by turning even the moments to account. They have the genius for hard work, the most desirable kind of genius. A continual dropping wears the stone. A little done this hour and a little the next hour, day by day, and year by year, brings much to pass. Even the largest houses are built by laying one stone upon another. 7. Complain not, then, of your want of leisure to do anything. Rather thank God that you are not cursed with leisure; for a curse it proves, in nine cases out of ten. What if, to achieve some good work which you have deeply at heart, you can never command an entire month, a week, or even a day? Shall you therefore stand still, and fold your arms in despair? No; the thought should only stimulate and urge you on to do what you can do in this swiftly passing life of ours. 8. Try what you can build up from the broken fragments of your time, rendered more precious by their brevity. It is said that in the Mint the floor of the gold-working room is a net-work of bars, to catch the falling grains of the precious metal; and that when the day's labour is done the bars are removed, and the golden dust is swept up, to be melted and coined. 9. Learn from this the nobler economy of time. Glean up its golden dust; economize with the utmost care those raspings and parings of life, those leavings of days and bits of hours, which most persons sweep out into the waste of life; and you will be rich in leisure. Rely upon it, if you are a miser of moments, if you hoard up and turn to account odd minutes and half-hours, you will at last be wealthier in knowledge, wealthier in good deeds harvested, than thousands whose time is all their own. 10. The biographer of George Stephenson tells us that the smallest fragments of his time were regarded by him as precious, and that "he was never so happy as when improving them." For years Benjamin Franklin strove, with inflexible resolution, to save for his own instruction every minute that could be won. 11. Henry Kirke White learned Greek while walking to and from a lawyer's office. Livingstone taught himself Latin grammar while working at the loom. Hugh Miller found time while pursuing his trade as a stone-mason, not only to read, but to write, cultivating his style till he became one of the most successful authors of the day. 12. The small stones that fill up the crevices are almost as essential to the firm wall as the great stones; and so the wise use of spare time contributes not a little to the building up of a man's mind in good proportions, and with strength. If you really prize mental culture, or are sincerely anxious to do any good thing, you will find time, or make time for it, sooner or later, however engrossed with other employments. A failure to accomplish it can only prove the feebleness of your will, not that you lacked time for its execution. 13. Franklin said: "Dost thou love life? then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." And how many of us may say with Horace Mann: "Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone for ever." Questions:-1. What did a celebrated Italian call his time? What is true of that, as of other estates? Wherein does lost time differ from lost wealth? 2. For what is want of leisure a common excuse? Why is it a bad one? 3. Who |