ruck dumb with admiration.
Struck dumb is never to be able to speak again, and I wish I had been
struck dumb when you wanted it."

"But I didn't want it!" Elspeth cried.

"If Thrums had been one little bit beautier than it is," he went on,
solemnly, "it would have struck me dumb. It would have hurt me sore, but
what about that, if it pleased you!"

Then did Elspeth see what a wicked girl she had been, and when next the
two were seen by the curious (it was on the cemetery road), they were
once more looking cheerful. At the smallest provocation they exchanged
notes of admiration, such as, "O Tommy, what a bonny barrel!" or "O
Elspeth, I tell yer that's a dike, and there's just walls in London;"
but sometimes Elspeth would stoop hastily, pretending that she wanted to
tie her boot-lace, but really to brush away a tear, and there were
moments when Tommy hung very limp. Each was trying to deceive the other
for the other's sake, and one of them was never good at deception. They
saw through each other, yet kept up the chilly game, because they could
think of nothing better; and perhaps the game was worth playing, for
love invented it.

Scribner's Magazine. Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

SINS OF CIRCUMSTANCE

From 'Sentimental Tommy'

With the darkness, too, crept into the Muckley certain devils in the
color of the night who spoke thickly and rolled braw lads in the mire,
and egged on friends to fight, and cast lewd thoughts into the minds of
the women. At first the men had been bashful swains. To the women's "Gie
me my faring, Jock," they had replied, "Wait, Jean, till I'm fee'd," but
by night most had got their arles, with a dram above it, and he who
could only guffaw at Jean a few hours ago had her round the waist now,
and still an arm free for rough play with other kimmers. The Jeans were
as boisterous as the Jocks, giving them leer for leer, running from them
with a giggle, waiting to be caught and rudely kissed. Grand, patient,
long-suffering fellows these men were, up at five, summer and winter,
foddering their horses, maybe, hours before there would be food for
themselves, miserably paid, housed like cattle, and when the rheumatism
seized them, liable to be flung aside like a broken graip. As hard was
the life of the women: coarse food, chaff beds, damp clothes their
portion; their sweethearts in the service of masters who were loth to
fee a married man. Is it to be wondered that these lads