Year: 1873

WHe, answered Lne nuSDSnQ, again
clinking the surplus money in his pocket,
lit would be folly to sacrifice our wish
for such trumpery thing. We can get
the COW and the horse without that"


And, sure enough, in another years
time the horse and the cow had been well
earned. So the man rubbed his hands
cheerfully, and said


"Another year has passed, and still the
wish is ours, and yet we have all we want;
what good luck we have"


The wife, however, began to be very
impatient, and tried seriously to induce
her husband to wish for something.


You are not like your own SELF" she
said, Grossly; formerly you were always
grumbling and complaining, and wishing
you might have whatever you want,
ed with everything, and let your best
years slip by. You might be King, En-
peror, Duke, a great rich farmer with
loads of money, but no-you can't make
up your mind what to choose"


''Pray do cease continually worrying
and teasing me-" cried the farmer; "we
are both of us young, and life is long.
The ring contains but one wish, and that
must not be squandered. Who knows
what may happen to us, when we might
really need the ring? Do we want for
anything now? Since the ring has been
ours, have we not so risen in the world
that all men marvel at us? So do be SEN
sible, and amuse yourself, if you like, by
thinking what we shall wish for"


And so the matter was allowed to rest
for the present. It really seemed as if
the ring brought blessings on the house,
for barns and granaries grew fuller and
fuller, from year to year; and, in the
course of time, the poor farmer became
a rich and prosperous one. He worked
all day with his men as if the whole
world depended upon it; but in the even
ing, when the vesper bell sounded, he
was always to be seen sitting, contented
and well-to- do, at his threshold, to be
wished "Good evening" by the passers-by.
Now and then, when they were quite
alone and no one near to hear, the woman
still reminded him of the ring, and
made all sorts of propositions to
him. He always answered there
was time enough to think about
it, an that the best ideas always oc-
Cured to one last. So she gradually fell
into the way of mentioning it less often,
and at last it rarely happened that the
ring was ever alluded to at all. The farm
er, it is true, turned the ring on his finger
twenty times day, and examined it close
ly, but he took good care never to express
the slightest wish at the time.


And so thirty and forty years went by,
and the farmer and his wife grew old and
their hair snow white, and still the wish
remained unspoken. At last it pleased
God to show them great mercy, and
He took them to Himself& both in one
night. Children and grandchildren stood
weeping round the coffins, and, as one
of them tried to withdraw the ring from
the dead mans fingers, the eldest son
said:


"Let our father take his ring to the
grave. There was some mystery about it.
Probably it was some love token, for our
mother often looked at the ring too; per-
haps she gave it to him when they both
were young"


So the old farmer was buried with the
ring which should have been a wishing
ring, but was not one, and yet had brought
as much good luck to the house as man
could desire. For it is strange, as regards
the true and the false, but bad thing
can be turned to better account in good
hands, than good thing in bad.-Good
Things.