ame a bishop, or why you should have been made one."

"Was your diocese entirely meadow-land?" inquired Mr. Archibald.

"I am coming to all that," said the stranger, with a smile of polite
consideration towards Mrs. Archibald. "I know very well that it is not at
all to my credit to dislike children, but I said I would be honest, and I
am. I do dislike them--not their bodies, but their minds. Children,
considered physically, are often pleasant to the view, and even
interesting as companions, providing their innate juvenility is
undisturbed; but when their personalities are rudely thrown open by a
teacher, and the innate juvenility prematurely exposed to the air, it is
something so clammy, so chilly to the mental marrow, that I shrink from it
as I would shrink from the touch of any cold, clammy thing."

"Horrible!" exclaimed Mrs. Archibald.

"I am not sure," observed Margery, "that there is not some truth in that.
I had a Sunday-school class for a little while, and although I can't say
there was a clamminess, there was--well, I don't know what there was, but
I gave it up."

"I am glad," said the man in black, "that my candor is not sinking me in
the estimation of every one present; but even if it did, I am obliged to
tell the truth. I do not know what would have become of me if I had not
had the good-fortune to catch the measles from a family with whom I was
spending Sunday in another town. As soon as the disease plainly showed
itself upon me my school was broken up, and it was never gathered together
again, at least under me.

"I must make my story brief, and can only say that not long after this I
found myself in another town, where it became necessary for me to do
something to support myself. This was difficult, for I am an indefinite
man, and definiteness seems necessary to success in any line. Happening
one day to pass a house with open lower windows, I heard the sound of
children's voices speaking in unison, and knowing that this must be a
school, I looked in, compelled entirely by that curiosity which often
urges us to gaze upon human suffering. I found, however, that this was a
kindergarten conducted by a young woman. Unobserved by scholars or
teacher, I watched the proceedings with great interest, and soon became
convinced that kindergartening was a much less repellent system of tuition
than any I had known; but I also perceived that the methods of the young
woman could be greatly improved. I thought a good