ELLEN'S NEW KEY.



ELLEN came to her aunty one day, and said, "I have found a new key to open people's hearts."

"Have you?" said Aunt Mary, as she dropped her knitting in her lap and looked up." What is it?" 

"It is the word Please" said Ellen, and she looked into her aunt's face with a good-natured smile. 

"When I ask the girls at school to please show me my lessons, they stop and help me, no matter what they are doing; when I say please to Jane, she does not scold me, but takes her hands from the suds to do what I ask her to; and when I say please to Uncle, he says,'Yes, my dear,' and looks so good-natured. I think, Aunty, that I shall always use this key, it is such a nice one to unlock hearts with." 

Her aunt smiled at the good resolution, knowing how it had been in the past. The fact is, Ellen had, like too many children, been in the habit of speaking to others in an ill-natured manner, calling upon them in a careless, and sometimes rough way to do favors for her, and was almost always told that she must not trouble them, or that she should come some time when they were not so busy. But now that she had resolved to be a better child, she had much less trouble to get along, besides having many more favors granted her.

If there are any of the family, either boys or girls, who have fallen into the same habit that Ellen had, let them procure her new key and see if it will not unlock people's hearts for them as well as for her.





 J. O. C.