To your inquiries the landlord of the Bear says, with a sigh and a shake
of the head,

"A gentle lad, sir, and a sad loss to his father."

"What--dead?" you ask.

"Yes, two years ago," the landlord replies. "Little Hamnet was never
very strong, to be sure, but he sickened and died almost before we knew
aught was wrong with him. A sad loss to his father. Master Shakespeare
dearly loved the lad, and while he was gathering fame and wealth he
thought most, I doubt not, of that boy to whom he was to pass them on."

"So Master William Shakespeare has grown rich as well as famous, has
he?" you say, for all England knows by that time of his wonderful plays.

"Indeed yes," the landlord answers you. "See, across the trees, that big
house yonder? It is New Place, bought in the spring of this very year of
1597, by Master Shakespeare, and put into fine repair. And there all his
family live now--his old father, Master John, his wife, Mistress Ann,
and all the children. But little Hamnet is not there, and I doubt not
Master Shakespeare would gladly give all New Place and his theatre in
London too, for that son of his back again, alive and well, and as happy
of face as he used to be in the old house in Henley Street."

The landlord of the Bear is right. Hamnet Shakespeare ended his short
life on the 11th of August, 1596, being then but eleven years old.

We know but little of his famous father's life; we know even less of the
son he so dearly loved. Nor can any one say, had the boy but lived,
whether he would have inherited anything of his father's genius.

The play of _Hamlet_ may have been called in memory of the boy Hamnet,
so nearly are the names alike; even more is it possible that the lovely
boy, Prince Arthur, whose tragic story is a part of Shakespeare's play
of _King John_, may have been drawn in memory of the writer's dead boy.
For _King John_ was written in the year of young Hamnet Shakespeare's
death, and with the loss of the boy he so dearly loved weighing upon his
soul, the great writer, whose name and fame the years only make yet more
great, may thus have put into words a tender memory of the short-lived
little Hamnet, the gentle son of Shakespeare.

THE DEMON OF SNAGGLE-TOOTH ROCK.

BY AGNES CARR SAGE.

[Illustration: Decorative T]

here were weeping and wailing within the Saunders' modest
"one-story-and-a-jump" cottage. Monongahela's eyes were red from crying;
the twins, Dallas Lee and Jemima Ca