Today's Stichomancy for Italo Calvino

and he went out hastily. The master of the house followed him and seemed to take an anxious interest in his condition. My neighbor and I looked at each other, but I saw a tinge of bitter sadness or reproach upon her countenance.

"Do you think your conduct is merciful?" she asked, drawing me to the embrasure of a window just as I was leaving the card-table, having lost all my money. "Would you accept the power of reading hearts? Why not leave things to human justice or divine justice? We may escape one but we cannot escape the other. Do you think the privilege of a judge of the court of assizes so much to be envied? You have almost done the work of an executioner."

never barked; but terrible would have been the moment had the pair made their teeth meet in some unknown adventurer.

We can now imagine the sort of life led by mother and daughter at the Chalet. Monsieur and Madame Latournelle, often accompanied by Gobenheim, came to call and play whist with Dumay nearly every evening. The conversation turned on the gossip of Havre and the petty events of provincial life. The little company separated between nine and ten o'clock. Modeste put her mother to bed, and together they said their prayers, kept up each other's courage, and talked of the dear absent one, the husband and father. After kissing her mother for good- night, the girl went to her own room about ten o'clock. The next

Modeste Mignon

You build a house! you knave, you'll be a beggar. Now, afore God, all is but cast away, That is bestowed upon this thriftless lad. Well, had I bound him to some honest trade, This had not been, but it was his mother's doing, To send him to the University. How? build a house where now this cottage stands, As fair as that at Sheene!--[Aside.] He shall not hear me. A good boy Tom! I con thee thank Tom! Well said Tom! gramarcies Tom!-- Into your work, knaves; hence, you saucy boy.