achers and pupils are execrable."

"I dare say that is often the case. If the academies could furnish such
teachers as existed fifty years ago; and alas! if we parents could
furnish such vigorous, determined, ambitious, self-denying pupils as
used to be sent out from country homes, we should have less to complain
of. Of course we are peculiarly fortunate here in Beulah."

Mr. Lord looked faintly amused and infinitely superior. "I am afraid, my
dear lady," he remarked, "that you have not had long enough experience
to comprehend the slenderness of Mr. Philpot's mental equipment."

"Oh, Mr. Philpot resigned nearly three months ago," said Mrs. Carey
easily, giving Henry Lord, Ph.D., her first stab, and a look of
amusement on her own behalf. "Ralph Thurston, the present principal, is
a fine, unusual fellow."

"Really? The children have never mentioned any change, but I regret to
say I am absent-minded at meals. The death of my wife left many gaps in
the life of the household."

"So that you have to be mother and father in one!" (Stab two: very
delicately delivered.)

"I fear I am too much of a student to be called a good family man."

"So I gathered." (Stab three. She wanted to provoke curiosity.)

Mr. Lord looked annoyed. He knew his unpopularity, and did not wish any
village gossip to reach the ears of strangers. "You, my dear madam, are
capable of appreciating my devotion to my life work, which the neighbors
naturally wholly misunderstand," he said.

"I gathered nothing from the neighbors," responded Mrs. Carey, "but a
woman has only to know children well to see at a glance what they need.
You are so absorbed in authorship just now, that naturally it is a
little hard for the young people; but I suppose there are breathing
places, 'between books'?"

"There are no breathing places between mine; there will be six volumes,
and I am scarcely half through the third, although I have given seven
years to the work. Still, I have an excellent housekeeper who attends to
all our simple needs. My children are not fitted for society."

"No, not quite." (Stab four). "That is the reason they ought to see a
good deal of it, but they are very fine children and very clever."

"I am glad you think so, but they certainly write bad English and have
no general knowledge whatsoever."

"Oh, well, that will come, doubtless, when you have more time with
them." (Stab five.) "I often think such mysterious things as good speech
and cult