h for the excellent showing he made in his studies last summer.

VI

Little Fred has been graduated from college without the loss of his
front teeth or an eye. He has a few scars, which will not permanently
disfigure him; and though he halts slightly as the result of a strained
tendon in the calf of one of his legs, Dr. Meredith assures us that
this is chiefly a nervous symptom, which will pass off presently. He
says Fred is a little run down, and he advises raw eggs and milk
between meals. I assume that the doctor is right, but it seems strange
to me that a boy should get run down through foot-ball exercise.
However, he is to go abroad for six months, which ought to mend
matters, and then buckle down to work with Leggatt & Paine. He is an
honest, manly fellow, who will make friends, and, provided he does not
break his neck in following the hounds or playing polo, is likely to do
well.

David, my second boy, is a born chemist and a genuine book-lover
besides. He is at the School of Science, to which we decided to send
him, instead of to college, in view of the fact that his proclivities
were in the line of gases and forces rather than Greek roots and
history. He is doing famously, I believe; and though I am a profound
ignoramus on such matters, I should not be at all surprised if he were
to make a name for himself early in life by some valuable discovery in
the electrical or bacillic line. He has lately made a test of all the
wall-papers and upholstery in our house, and discovered, to our dismay,
that there is arsenic in pretty nearly everything, including some of
the bed-sheets, which, strange to state, in spite of their innocent
appearance, proved to be particularly full of the deleterious poison.
We have had to overhaul everything in consequence, and Josephine firmly
believes that Fred's nervous halt is due to the presence of arsenic in
his system, for the bed-sheets in his college room belonged to the
condemned batch. Seeing that the rest of us are perfectly well, I
secretly suspect that late hours and tobacco are more to blame than
arsenic for my athletic son's condition; but in the teeth of scientific
warning I have not ventured to run the risk of continued exposure, and
have consented to the purchase of new carpets, curtains, window-shades,
and other household apparel.

I am much more concerned, to tell the truth, lest some of the germs
which David is cosseting in his bed-chamber may get loose a