e in our pulpit I
shall make my sermons for this generation altogether crack, sentimental
sermons, and drive away dull care. That's my understanding of the good
shepherd."

"Mr. Van de Lear, there are some cares so natural that they are almost
consolation. Under the pressure of them we draw nearer to happiness.
What merry words should be said to those who were bred under this roof
in such misfortunes as I have now--as the absent have?"

Podge saw Agnes put her handkerchief to her face, and her neck shake a
minute convulsively. Duff Salter here sneezed loudly: "Jericho!
Jerichew! Je-ry-cho-o!" He produced a tortoise-shell snuff-box, and
Podge took a pinch, for fun, and sneezed until the tears came to her
eyes and her hair was shaken down. She wrote on the tablets,

"Men could eat dirt and enjoy it."

He replied, "At last dirt eats all the men."

"It's to get rid of them!" wrote Podge. "My boys at school are dirty by
inclination. They will chew anything from a piece of India rubber shoe
to slippery elm and liquorice root. One piece of liquorice will
demoralize a whole class. They pass it around."

Duff Salter replied, "The boys must have something in their mouths; the
girls in their heads!"

"But not liquorice root," added Podge.

"No; they put the boys in their heads!"

"Pshaw!" wrote Podge, "girls don't like boys. They like nice old men who
will pet them."

Here Podge ran out of the room and the conversation in the front parlor
was renewed. The voice of Calvin Van de Lear said:

"Agnes, looking at your affairs in the light of religious duty, as you
seem to prefer, I must tell you that your actions have not always been
perfect."

Nothing was said in reply to this.

"I am to be your pastor at some not distant day," spoke the same voice,
"and may take some of that privilege now. As a daughter of the church
you should give the encouragement of your beauty and favor only to
serious, and approved, and moral young men. Not such scapegraces as
Andrew Zane!"

"Sir!" exclaimed Agnes, rising. "How dare you speak of the poor absent
one?"

"Sit down," exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear, not a bit discomposed. "I have
some disciplinary power now, and shall have more. A lady in full
communion with our church--a single woman without a living
guardian--requires to hear the truth, even from an erring brother. You
have no right to go outside the range at least of respectable men, to
place your affections and bestow your bea