III.

  A little doll with flaxen hair,
  A little willow rocking-chair,
  A little dress of richest hue,
  A little pair of gaiters blue.

  IV.

  A little school day after day,
  A “little schoolma’am” to obey,
  A little study—­soon ’tis past,
  A little graduate at last.

  V.

  A little muff for winter weather,
  A little jockey-hat and feather,
  A little sack with funny pockets,
  A little chain, a ring, and lockets.

  VI.

  A little while to dance and bow,
  A little escort homeward now,
  A little party, somewhat late,
  A little lingering at the gate.

  VII.

  A little walk in leafy June,
  A little talk while shines the moon,
  A little reference to papa,
  A little planning with mamma.

  VIII.

  A little ceremony grave,
  A little struggle to be brave,
  A little cottage on a lawn,
  A little kiss—­my girl was gone!

* * * * *

MARS, THE PLANET OF WAR.

BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR.

Not long ago, the planet Jupiter came among the stars of our southern evening skies.  Those who noted down his track found that he first advanced from west to east, then receded along a track near his advancing one, then advanced again, still running on a track side by side with his former advancing track, and so passed away from the scene, toward the part of the sky where the sun’s light prevents our tracking him.

That was a useful and rather easy first lesson about the motions of the bodies called planets.

We have now to consider a rather less simple case, but one a great deal more interesting.  Two planets intrude among our evening stars, each following a looped track, but the tracks are unlike; the two planets are unlike in appearance, and they are also very unlike in reality.

I hope many of my young readers have already found out for themselves that these intrusive bodies have been wandering among our fixed stars.  I purposely said nothing about the visitors last August, so that those who try to learn the star-groups from my maps may have had a chance of discovering the two planets for themselves.  If they have done so, they have in fact repeated a discovery which was made many, many years ago.  Ages before astronomy began to be a science, men found out that some of the stars move about among the rest, and they also noticed the kind of path traveled in the sky by each of those moving bodies.  It was long, indeed, before they found out the kind of path traveled really by the planets.  In fact, they supposed our earth to be fixed; and if our earth were fixed, the paths of the planets about her as a center would be twisted and tangled in the most perplexing way.  So that folks in those old times, seeing the planets making all manner