" Old, prophetic, syllabic sounds, lisped in the place whence I had come, were given unto me, and I answered, "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth!

A skylark hung In mid-air flutt'ring, and sung A lullaby that grew more sweet Amid the stillness, in the heat And splendour of the sun: the lisp Of faint wind in the herbage crisp Went past them; and around the bare And foam-striped sand-banks gleaming fair, The faintly-panting waves were cast By the wan deep fatigued and vast.

And everywhere leaves lisped to one another, and birds shrilled insistently.

"I've got a hunch you're barkin' up the wrong tree," he lisped with a shrug of shoulders.

In wait for mischief, they are prompt to hear; With guileful purpose our behests obey; Like ministers of grace they oft appear, And lisp like angels, to betray.

Deal gently, thou whose hand hath won The young bird from its nest away, Where, careless, 'neath a vernal sun, She gayly carolled day by day; The haunt is lone, the heart must grieve, From where her timid wing doth soar They pensive lisp at hush of eve, Yet hear her gushing song no more.

Another prattler, too, lisps on his knee, The orphan daughter of a hapless pair, Who, voyaging upon the Indian sea, Met the fierce typhon-blastand perished there:

It came up licking and lisping over the surface of Cornisk, and drove us to the lee of rocks and the shelter of our ponchos, to watch the mists drifting, to listen to the swell and lull of the wind and the patter of the cold rain.

Their plumage is almost always striking, but their voices are rather lisping than musical, though they sing pretty little snatches in the woods; but many of their call-notes sound more like the squeaks and buzzings of insects and tree-toads than like the voices of birds, and it will take time and practice before you can distinguish them apart.

And in its tom-boy etiquette, Maid Mignonette, my Mignonette. When bare-feet lisp along the path, And boys and jays go whistling by, And girls and thrushes coyly cry Their fine joys through the aftermath Then laid ghosts know their amulet Which fickle siren mem'ry hath; So laughing comes that sad coquette, Comes Mignonette,my Mignonette.

As his eyes opened, and his mind expanded, she taught him to the best of her humble power to acknowledge the Maker of All; and every night and every morning he and shethe mother and the little boyprayed to our Father together, the mother pleading with all her gentle heart, the child lisping after her as she spoke.