hand quickly.

"Burn ye?" said Miss S'mantha.

"Yes; but I like it!" said he, a bit embarrassed. "I often go
and--and put my hand on a hot teapot if I'm having too much fun."

They looked up at him, puzzled.

"Ever slide down hill?" he inquired, looking from one to the other,
after a bit of silence.

"Oh, not since we were little!" said Miss Letitia, holding her
biscuit daintily, after taking a bite none too big for a bird to
manage.

"Good fun!" said be. "Whisk you back to childhood in a jiffy.
Folks ought to slide down hill more'n they do. It isn't a good
idea to be always climbing."

"'Fraid we couldn't stan' it," said Miss S'mantha, tentatively.
Under all her man-fear and suspicion lay a furtive recklessness.

"Y, no!" the other whispered, laughing silently.

The pervading silence of that house came flooding in between
sentences. For a moment Trove could hear only the gurgle of
pouring tea and the faint rattle of china softly handled. When he
felt as if the silence were drowning him, he began again:--

"Life is nothing but a school. I'm a teacher, and I deal in rules.
If you want to kill misery, load your gun with pleasure."

"Do you know of anything for indigestion?" said Miss S'mantha,
charging her sickly voice with a firmness calculated to discourage
any undue familiarity.

"Just the thing--a sure cure!" said he, emphatically.

"Come high?" she inquired.

"No, it's cheap and plenty."

"Where do you send?"

"Oh!" said he; "you will have to go after it."

"What is it called ?"

"Fun," said the teacher, quickly; "and the place to find it is out
of doors. It grows everywhere on my farm. I'd rather have a pair
of skates than all the medicine this side of China."

She set down her teacup and looked up at him. She was beginning to
think him a fairly safe and well-behaved man, although she would
have been more comfortable if he had been shut in a cage.

"If I had a pair o' skates," said she, faintly, with a look of
inquiry at her sister, "I dunno but I'd try 'em."

Miss Letitia began to laugh silently.

"I'd begin with overshoes," said the teacher, "A pair of overshoes
and a walk on the crust every morning before breakfast; increase
the dose gradually."

The two old maids were now more at ease with their guest. His
kindly manner and plentiful good spirits had begun to warm and
cheer them. Miss S'mantha even cherished a secret resolve to slide
if the chance came.

After tea Sid