s packing," said their mother; "won't we, girls?"

"Hurrah!" said Peggy.

"Peggy," I said, "I am sorry to cast a cold shower on your enthusiasm,
but there are limits. You and your mother are great and undeniable
packers, but your ways are not my ways."

"Anyhow," said Helen, "we should do it better than Swabey."

"No," I said, "you would do it worse. Swabey has his faults, but I know
them. He always forgets white ties and handkerchiefs, but these I can
buy, borrow or steal. You would forget white shirts and dress trousers,
which mean nothing to you, but are all the world to me. Swabey packs my
shaving-brush and my safety razor into my dress shoes, where I come upon
them eventually. You would leave them out altogether. I am grateful to
you all for your generous offer, but Swabey shall do my packing--that is
if I go."

It is unnecessary to say that I went. The dinners were, as usual, a
great success. We all became young again in our own eyes, and on the
whole I was not sorry to have a bedroom in London. But why had it been
forced on me against my will? The reason will appear in a letter from
Peggy which I received on the second morning of my compulsory freedom;--

"DEAREST DAD,--We are geting on alright. The maids are now in the libary
and everything has been put somwere else. A lot of your papers got blown
about, but we ran after them and got most of them. Our meels are in your
den. Their going into the dining room direckly. The dust is dredfull and
the dogs don't like it. It is a spring cleening with love from your
loving

PEGGY."
R. C. L.

* * * * *

LAID.

He was no commonplace suburban spook
Content to rap on table-tops; he cherished
The memory of days when at his look
Princes and peers incontinently perished;
Stuck in his heart a jewelled knife dripped red;
Flames had been known to issue from his head.

The Moated Grange, now ruinous and drear,
He roamed, constrained to bitter self-effacement,
Until one midnight his enraptured ear
Detected mortal accents in the basement.
Downstairs he crept; beside the cheerless grate
Sat four or five old men in keen debate.

Softly he chuckled, "Here's a bit of luck!"
And beat a warning rattle on his tabor
That once had made the stoutest run amok;
Then each old boy sat up and