"As true as possible. Mother told me her very own self," was the emphatic reply. Two children, brother and sister, the boy aged ten, the girl three years older, were carrying on this conversation in the garden of a country rectory. "But really and truly, on your word of honour," repeated Leonard, as though he could not believe what his sister had just related to him. "I hope my word is always a word of honour; I thought everybody's word ought to be that," Sybil Graham replied a little proudly, f

As far as money was concerned, Mr. Graham had no anxieties, for being the only son of a very wealthy man, who had lost his wife some time before he died himself, Mr. Graham had, at his father's death, inherited the whole of his large fortune. "Now, father, don't you think it's high time you began to tell us about old Peking?" Leonard said, a few days after they had sailed. "I did not ask you at first, because we had plenty to do to look about us, but now that there's nothing in the world but wat

"I will try to do so," was the answer; "but I think what you hear may puzzle you a good deal, for they have very strange creeds." "Did grandfather make many converts?" "Very few indeed; but then he was one of our very first missionaries to Peking, so was most thankful for the very little which he was enabled to do. "I remember two men for whose conversion from Buddhism he often gave thanks. One was a citizen of Tientsin, where we landed on our way to the capital. "This good fellow, who was then

"How far did you get?" he asked, as he sat amongst the group of father, mother, and children, for Mrs. Graham had also come to "the show" to-day. "That tea was an evergreen plant, something like the myrtle," Sybil said, laughing; and all laughed with her. "Then I have it all to do, it seems. Well, the tea-plant yields a crop after it has been planted three years, and there are three gatherings during the year: one in the middle of April, the second at midsummer, and the third in August and Septe

Shanghai seemed, and was, a very busy place, but not a town of very great importance in itself, owing, really, its recent prosperity to having opened its port to foreign commerce. The custom-house, through which the Grahams' boxes had to be passed, struck the children as a very strange and beautiful building, quite different from anything that they had seen before; and there was a great noise of chattering going on outside, which sounded most unintelligible. Coolies were carrying bales of silk a

A very large bridge crosses the Han River at this place, a picture of which the teacher had, and showed to the children. It is made of stone, and composed of many arches, or rather square gateways, under which ships pass to and fro. On the bridge, on each side of the causeway, are houses and shops. "I should not care much to live in them," said Leonard. Nor would the teacher, he replied; for they did not look, and were not supposed to be, at all safe. Two pieces of wood are suspended between the

Macao was not as full now as it had been during the summer months, when many people resort thither from Canton for change of air and to enjoy the fresh sea-breezes. A beautiful walk, called the Grand Parade, surrounds its picturesque bay. As Macao belongs to the Portuguese, a great many of the inhabitants speak that language. Mr. and Mrs. Graham and their children stayed, whilst at Macao, at the Grand Hotel, which was situated on the Parade, where was also a very pretty jetty, on which Sybil and

The shops opened right upon the street, which was very gay indeed with sign-boards. Just in front of the shops were granite counters, on which goods were shown to purchasers. Many of the sign-boards rested on granite pedestals. On one side of each shop was a little altar, dedicated to the god of wealth, or the god supposed to preside over the special trade carried on within. Every heathen Chinese merchant and shopkeeper has some little spot set apart for this worship, although all the shops have

"Please, father," she said, "tell me all that the Chinese do when anybody dies." "I do not think I could tell you all," was her father's reply, "because it would take too long, and I do not know all myself; but I dare say I can tell you quite enough to satisfy your curiosity. When a Chinese thinks that a relation is likely to die soon, he places him, with his feet towards the door, on a bed of boards, arranging his best robes and a hat, or cap, quite close to him, that he may be dressed in these