A SAD STORY. 



" Ah me ! " said the sponge. " Dear ! dear ! dear ! well-a-day ! " 



" What is the matter? " asked the bath-tub. " Have you been 

 squeezed too hard, or has the nurse rubbed soap on you again? 

 I know soap never agrees with you." 



"I am rather exhausted by the squeezing, I confess," replied the 

 sponge ; " but it was not for that I sighed. I am gradually getting 

 used to these daily tortures. 



" But I was thinking about the past; about my beautiful home, 

 from which I was so cruelly torn, and about the happy, happy life 

 I led there." 



" Tell me about it," said the bath-tub. " You have told me 

 before, but I always find it interesting. My home was in a tin-shop, 

 as you are aware. The society was good, but it was rather a dnll 

 place, on the whole. You lived, you say " — 



" On the coast of Syria," said the sponge, with a sigh, — "the 

 coast of beautiful Syria. There is a tiny bay, where the shore is 

 bold and rocky. The rocks are bare above the water, but down 

 below they are covered with lovely plants, and fringed with gay 

 mosses, beautiful to behold. The bottom of the sea is covered with 

 silver sand, and over it move the crimson and gold colored jelly- 

 fish, the scarlet star-fish, and a thousand other brilliant creatures, 

 making the neighborhood always attractive and delightful. On a 

 certain ledge of rock, close by the bottom, I lived, as happy an 

 animal as could be found in the Mediterranean Sea." 



