rs, which, as our wayward sisters were wont to say, when our
generals had done them a particularly bad turn, was just what they
wanted. So the afternoon sang itself peacefully away; only the princess
was of an evil mind, and would mar the king's pleasure, when he was
solacing himself with a remainder-biscuit brought in the princess'
basket from the clam-bake, by saying, "Do you see that window? There is
the closet where the cake is kept. Just behind that clapboard stands the
jar of jam. Two feet to the right, I should think, reposes a
cranberry-tart, the crust flaky and fantastic as a January snow-wreath,
the jelly rich and red as the curve of Fantasima's lip"; and then the
king would roll his eyes around at her in a fine frenzy, and gnaw his
crust with a still more wrathful despair.--And that is the end of my
romance of the barn.

Still, it must be confessed, an old barn is not without its
disadvantages, which the impartial historian must not pass silently by.
It shakes wonderfully in a high wind. You hardly dare drive a nail
anywhere, for fear the whole edifice should rattle down over your head.
We desired to set up in the loft one of Dr. Dio Lewis's
jumping-machines; but, upon minute investigation, Halicarnassus said
no,--with the first antic we should find ourselves in the barn-cellar.
In short, an old barn, in an advanced stage of disintegration, must be
treated as tenderly as a loveress. (There seems to be a movement
nowadays towards the introduction of feminine nouns; so I venture to
make my contribution.)

When the seeds were to be sown, it became necessary to shut up the
hens,--necessary, but difficult. I closed the door myself every night
with unwearied assiduity, but bright and early every morning came the
homely hens and the stately-stepping rooster, treading and pecking as
innocently as if they had never suspected they were on forbidden ground.
I instituted a search one day; and no wonder they got out. We might have
barricaded the door to our heart's content, and they would have tossed
their crests in scorn. For there, directly under their perch, was a
great hole in the side of the edifice. Hole do I say? It was many holes
run into one. Hole was the rule, and barn the exception. It was vacancy
bounded by a rough, serrate-dentate coast of decayed boards. It is
little to say chicken,--an elephant might have contemplated imprisonment
there undismayed. Of course reparation must be made, or farewell, dream
of