rds he started in his chair, and
resumed his stiff, dignified position in a great hurry. "Bless my soul!"
cried he, with a comic look of astonishment and vexation, "while I have
been telling you what is the real secret of my interest in the sketch
you have so kindly given to me, I have altogether forgotten that I came
here to sit for my portrait. For the last hour or more I must have been
the worst model you ever had to draw from!"

"On the contrary, you have been the best," said I. "I have been
trying to catch your likeness; and, while telling your story, you have
unconsciously shown me the natural expression I wanted to insure my
success."

NOTE BY MRS. KERBY

I cannot let this story end without mentioning what the chance saying
was which caused it to be told at the farmhouse the other night. Our
friend the young sailor, among his other quaint objections to sleeping
on shore, declared that he particularly hated four-post beds, because he
never slept in one without doubting whether the top might not come down
in the night and suffocate him. I thought this chance reference to the
distinguishing feature of William's narrative curious enough, and
my husband agreed with me. But he says it is scarcely worth while to
mention such a trifle in anything so important as a book. I cannot
venture, after this, to do more than slip these lines in modestly at
the end of the story. If the printer should notice my few last
words, perhaps he may not mind the trouble of putting them into some
out-of-the-way corner, in very small type.

L. K.

MICHEL LORIO'S CROSS, By Hesba Stretton

In the southwest point of Normandy, separated from Brittany only by a
narrow and straight river, like the formal canals of Holland, stands the
curious granite rock which is called Mont St. Michel. It is an isolated
peak, rising abruptly out of a vast plain of sand to the height of
nearly four hundred feet, and so precipitous toward the west that
scarcely a root of grass finds soil enough in its weather-beaten clefts.
At the very summit is built that wonderful church, the rich architecture
and flying buttresses of which strike the eye leagues and leagues away,
either on the sea or the mainland. Below the church, and supporting
it by a solid masonry, is a vast pile formerly a fortress, castle,
and prison; with caverns and dungeons hewn out of the living rock, and
vaulted halls and solemn crypts; all desolate and solitary now, except
when a p