she danced it with somebody rather nice."

* * *

In former times, when royalties were more important, a lady at a court
ball was intensely gratified when a prince selected her as a partner.
She was almost overwhelmed with pride when he danced a second measure
with her.

"Oh," she gushed, as she reposed blissfully in his arms, "your highness
does me too great honor."

The prince answered coldly:

"But no, madam. Merely, my physician has directed me to perspire."

CONCEALMENT

The widow was deep in suds over the family wash, when she saw her pastor
coming up the path to the door. She gave directions to her young son to
answer the bell, and to tell the clergyman that his mother had just gone
down the street on an errand. Since the single ground floor room of the
cottage offered no better hiding place against observation from the
door, she crouched behind a clothes-horse hung with drying garments.
When the boy had opened the door to the minister, and had duly delivered
the message concerning his mother's absence, the reverend gentleman cast
a sharp look toward the screen of drying clothes, and addressed the boy
thus:

"Well, my lad, just tell your mother I called. And you might say to her
that the next time she goes down the street, she should take her feet
along."

CONCEIT

"I suppose I must admit that I do have my faults," the husband remarked
in a tone that was far from humble.

"Yes," the wife snapped, "and in your opinion your faults are better
than other folks' virtues."

CONSCIENCE

The child had been greatly impressed by her first experience in Sunday
school. She pressed her hands to her breast, and said solemnly to her
sister, two years older:

"When you hear something wite here, it is conscience whispering to you."

"It's no such thing," the sister jeered. "That's just wind on your
tummie."

CONSTANCY

His companion bent over the dying man, to catch the last faintly
whispered words. The utterance came with pitiful feebleness, yet with
sufficient clearness:

"I am dying--yes. Go to Fannie. Tell her--I died--with her name--on my
lips, that I--loved her--her alone--always.... And Jennie--tell
Jennie--the same thing."

CONVERSION

A zealous church member in a Kentucky village made an earnest effort to
convert a particularly vicious old mountaineer named Jim, who was
locally notorious for his godlessness. But the old man was hard-headed
an