The Turks were once noted for their great proficiency in rope walking, but they have been equalled by Japanese, European, and American performers.  Many women have been famous in this line, and a Madame Sacqui, a Frenchwoman, was such an expert artist that one of her countrymen likened her to a “Homeric goddess” (although I do not know how Juno or Minerva would have looked on a tight-rope), and asserted that her boldness and agility were the glory of the First Empire!  This infatuated Frenchman must have considered glory to have been very scarce in his country in Madame Sacqui’s day.  There was a French baby, however, who surpassed this lady, for the little one walked on the tight-rope before she could walk on the ground, and afterwards became famous enough to perform, in 1814, before an assembly of kings—­the allied sovereigns of Europe.

The public performers of different kinds of gymnastic feats often make a great deal of money; but they sometimes break their necks, and frequently injure their health by over-exertion.

So that exercises for health and amusement are the only kinds of gymnastics that I recommend.

BUYING “THE MIRROR.”

Miss Harper came into the room where George and Mary Conly and Ella Lee were playing with jack-straws.  They had played everything else they could think of, and, feeling tired, had quietly settled themselves down to jack-straws.  They could have amused themselves from morning until night out of doors without being weary; but Mr. Conly’s house was in the city, and had such a tiny bit of a yard that only fairies could have got up a frolic in it.  When they were in the country there were so many things they could do, and when they were tired running about, there was the see-saw on the big log under the old elm.

[Illustration]

But they were not in the country now, and children have not the spirit to keep up their sports in the house as they do out of doors.  So, when Miss Harper appeared with a book in her hand, George and Mary sprang up from the table in delight, and exclaimed: 

“Oh, cousin Fanny! are you going to read to us?”

“Yes,” said Miss Harper, “I thought you would like to hear some more of those pretty stories I read to you yesterday.”

“That we will!” cried George, skipping about the room, while Mary, with eyes sparkling with pleasure, hastily raked the jack-straws into a pile.

“We can both get into this big chair, Ella,” she said, “and then we can hear cumfible.”

Now Ella would much rather have played jack-straws, for she thought listening to reading was very dull business indeed; but she was a polite little girl, which is pretty much the same thing as saying she was not selfish, and seeing that George and Mary were so pleased, and expected her to be so also, she made no objection, and climbed up into the big chair, and found it “cumfible,” as Mary had said.