should enjoy while she was making merry with her friends. To this
she once ventured to remark that in that case perhaps my
affection would thrive to greater advantage if I contented myself
with thinking about her and not seeing her at all, a suggestion
which wounded me in my tenderest sensibilities, for I was
very much in love. I was also not a little disturbed when,
supplemental to my reminiscences, Mary went back to the past and
humorously drew pictures of me as her own early lover. There is
considerable difference between the impalpable, airy spirit of
the fancy and a wrinkled and austere feminine actuality of fifty.

In the midst of these innocent and improving pleasures a small
cloud appeared in the summer sky. I received a letter addressed
in a peculiar but not ornate hand, and I opened it with
misgivings and read it with consternation.

MR. STANHOPE SIR: Prudence and I thinks youd better come home.
The plummer was hear twice yisterday and the cutworms is awfle.
Hero got glass in her foot and the brown tale moths is bad
again wich is al for the presnt.

Respecfuly

MALACHY.

Duty is one of the exactions of life which I have never shirked
when there seemed no possible way of evading it, but in this
instance the call of duty was compromised by matters of equal
urgency, for nothing can be more important than the successful
administration of the affairs of love. It was a happy thought
that suggested to me a way out of the difficulty, which was
neither more nor less than that we should all go to the city
together. I sprang the proposition at a family conference.
Phyllis was delighted. "There is always so much to be seen in the
city," she cried, "and I shall meet Mr. Bunsey. It has been one
of the dreams of my life to know a real literary man."

This appeared to call for an explanation. Heaven knows I am not
jealous of Bunsey, and would not deprive him of a single
distinction that is honestly his. But a regard for the truth,
coupled with much doubt as to Bunsey's ability to live up to such
lively expectations, compelled me to resort to a little gentle
correction.

"My dear Phyllis," I said, "you must disabuse your mind of that
fallacy. Bunsey is a popular novelist, not a literary man."

"But isn't a novelist a literary man?" she asked in amazement.

"Not necessarily," I replied pityingly. "In fact I may say not
usually