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This delicate shrub adorns almost every garden hedge, in the summer, with its little bunches of sweet-smelling white flowers; and in the winter, with its grape-like clusters of black, glossy, round berries, which, though bitter and unpleasant to our taste, are eaten readily by the bulfinches and blackbirds. In some cottage gardens the Privet may be seen trimmed into curious forms, and as it retains its leaves all the winter, it forms one of the neatest and prettiest ornaments of our hedge-rows."

THE KHUND GIRLS.

MRS. BACHELER, the wife of a Free-will Baptist missionary at Balasore, in the East Indies, gives the following pleasing report of a school under her care, composed of girls who have been rescued from the Khunds, a savage race, by whom they would have been offered in sacrifice to their bloody gods.

"We are getting on about the same as usual, only my school is more and more interesting, and I feel more and more delight in my work. How I wish you could just step into the Khund girls' compound an enclosure or yard] with me and see how happy and industrious they appear; but as this is impossi

ble, allow me to describe a little what

you would see were you here. We walk through our garden, which just now, is full of corn in the ear, and at the farther end, come to a door in a mud wall which surrounds the house. We enter the door, and find ourselves in an enclosure of one fourth of an acre of smooth On the right hand, as

ground, covered with grass.

pond for the girls to

we enter, is a small artificial bathe in, and on the left, a small house, open, containing a large wooden machine, with which they beat the rice from the husk. This is slow, hard work, and of the kind that would be performed by men in America. We go to the house, a common mud building with thatched roof, and sit down upon the verandah in the midst of many salams [salutations] from the girls, who at once seat themselves around us. The girls seem very happy, and we do not wonder, for all is pleasant around them. Playing in the grass and around the plants, are several fine English rabbits, and twenty or thirty doves are cooing on the wood piled in the verandah. These and the rabbits were given me by an English lady living near us, and I have given them in charge to the girls, who are highly delighted. We sit only a minute when Lydia, one of the girls from Jellasore, asks us to go and see her vegetable garden, which

we find to be mostly on the roof of the house, and to consist of a kind of squash, the vine of which climbs very high. We will now go into the house, which has three rooms, one a store room, one to sleep in, and the other the cooking room. The floors are of mud, but hard and smooth, being washed thoroughly every week. In the cooking room are three small fire places. They are simply a hole made in the ground about six inches deep, and of the same width: the mud is raised a little round the top, so that the pots can be set on, and the fire is put beneath. All the cooking is done in pots which are made of mud and burnt, without legs or handles. Their food is very simple, and cooked in a very simple way. The only furniture we see are some baskets in which they keep their clothes, a few books, and the reed mats on which they sleep. On the whole, we cannot help thinking that the girls are very happy, and have reason to be so, and we go out of the compound, contrasting their condition with that of their poor country women, and also with the horrid fate that once awaited them.

They are now learning to spin and twist. They have a couple of new spinning wheels, for which I gave a shilling, the usual price. They have already knit several pairs of stockings, besides their usual

house-work and studies. They have learned to sing quite a number of Oreah hymns, and it is a very pleasant sound to hear them all singing together on a still evening. When they came to us the last of April, they knew not that there is a God, or that they had souls to save or lose; now, they possess a good degree of religious knowledge, and we hope and pray that they may become true christians. Some of them, I think, are unusually interesting. The youngest, whom I have named Sally, is an affectionate little thing, with a sweet voice for singing. I require them all to get a few verses from the Testament to say in sabbath school, which the Oreah girls teach them.

My dear Khund girls are now around me. Oh, how deeply I love them! It is my custom of a Wednesday afternoon to instruct them in some simple religious truth. The last subject was the existence of but one God, and his omnipotence. I told them that when they went with me on the road they saw, under this tree, and that tree, and the other tree, mud elephants and stones, before which the people fell down and prayed, and the women stood up and blew horns, but as soon as they turned their backs, the gods were no longer with them. When they went to their homes, their gods were not

there; and when they were sick and died, their gods were not near to comfort them. Then I told them of the true and living God-that he was every where -that if they had the wings of birds and could fly high in the air, God would be there that if they were to sink to the bottom of the sea, God would be there, and then told them God was with us then -that he was looking into their hearts and saw all their wickedness-that when they went to their house he would go with them-that he was with them always, by night and by day. They listened with great attention, and the tears rolled down their cheeks. I do hope some of them are under the Holy Spirit's influence.

How consoling is the hope of the christian, the hope of a blessed world "where parted friends again shall meet," where tears shall be wiped from every eye, where sin shall no more pollute and distress the soul, or toil and pain weigh down the body. When I can feel that this hope is mine, I am happy, and if my heart deceives me not, I often feel thus. It has been good for me to be without outward christian privileges. It has compelled me to seek in God all my comfort and consolation, and in him I have found a rich fulness, which has a thousand times more than compensated for that which I have left behind."