Today's Stichomancy for Frederick II

expects to have people come and see her, the way ladies do in town?"

"Well, no, miss; she don't do tbat, for, tin to one, nobody'd come if she did. We belongs to the workin' classes, Molly and I, and we has no time for the doing of the loikes of city people."

"I'm sorry she hasn't a day," said Tattine, "because--because--"

"If ye're maning that you'd like to give us a call, miss," said Patrick, beginning to take in the situation, "shure she could have a day at home as aisy as the foinest lady, and proud indeed she'd be to have it with your little self for the guest of honor."

"I would like to bring Rudolph and Mabel, Patrick."

"And what should hinder, miss?"

ingenuous, the fear of the sea was constantly in my mind, battling with the fear of my companions. I need not cry myself up for courage; I have done well on many fields under the eyes of famous generals, and earned my late advancement by an act of the most distinguished valour before many witnesses. But when we must proceed on one of our abordages, the heart of Francis Burke was in his boots; the little eggshell skiff in which we must set forth, the horrible heaving of the vast billows, the height of the ship that we must scale, the thought of how many might be there in garrison upon their legitimate defence, the scowling heavens which (in that climate) so often looked darkly down upon our exploits,

miserably after all than those who have taken all the common risks of freedom from their childhood onward as matters of course.

The Conflict of Wills

The world wags in spite of its schools and its families because both schools and families are mostly very largely anarchic: parents and schoolmasters are good-natured or weak or lazy; and children are docile and affectionate and very shortwinded in their fits of naughtiness; and so most families slummock along and muddle through until the children cease to be children. In the few cases when the parties are energetic and determined, the child is crushed or the parent is reduced to a cipher, as the case may be. When the opposed

Old Malahin takes the cap into his hand, and with the air of a connoisseur pinches the fur, blows on it, sniffs at it, and a contemptuous smile lights up his angry face.

"It must be imitation!" he says gleefully. "Imitation it is."

A dispute follows. The guard maintains that the cap is real beaver, and the engine-driver and Malahin try to persuade him that it is not. In the middle of the argument the old man suddenly remembers the object of his coming.

"Beaver and cap is all very well, but the train's standing still, gentlemen!" he says. "Who is it we are waiting for? Let us start!"

The Schoolmistress and Other Stories