s
swept out to sea by a tempest.

The familiar objects and landmarks had all vanished. As children rise in
the morning to find the chalk lines, inside of which they had played
their game of "hop-scotch," washed out by the rain, they had awakened to
find that the well known pathways and barriers over which and within
which they had been accustomed to move had all been obliterated. They
had nothing to guide them and nothing to restrain them except what was
written in their hearts, and this mysterious hieroglyph they had not yet
learned to decipher.

They were awakened from their reveries by the footsteps of the quack,
and by his raucous voice summoning them back into the world of realities
from which they had withdrawn so completely.

"Well, little wife," he said, "how is b-b-business?"

"Fair," she said, gathering up a double hand-full of change and passing
it over to him indifferently.

The question fell upon the ears of the Quaker like a thunder bolt. It
was to him the first intimation that Pepeeta was not the daughter of the
quack. "His wife!" The heart of the youth sank in his bosom. Here was a
new and unexpected complication. What should he do? It was too late to
turn back now. The die had been cast, and he must go forward.

The doctor rattled on with an unceasing flow of talk, while the mind of
the Quaker plunged into a series of violent efforts to adjust itself to
this new situation. He tried to force himself to be glad that he had
been mistaken. He for the first time fully admitted the significance of
the qualms which he felt at permitting himself to regard this strolling
gypsy with such feelings as had been in his heart.

"But now," he said to himself, "I can go forward with less compunction.
I can gratify my desire for excitement and adventure with perfect
safety. I will stay with them for a while, and when I am tired can leave
them without any entanglements." When the situation had been regarded
for a little while from this point of view, he felt happier and more
care-free than for weeks. He solaced his disappointment with the
reflection that he should still be near Pepeeta, but no longer in any
danger.

At this profound reflection of the young moth hovering about the flame,
let the satirist dip his pen in acid, and the pessimist in gall! There
is enough folly and stupidity in the operations of the human mind to
provoke the one to contempt and the other to despair.

The cuttle-fish throws out an ink