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intervene and stifle the seeds of dutifully nurtured benevolence. Nor did she love herself to any excess of unrighteousness; knowing, with a perfervid knowledge, that she was altogether abominable and corrupt, and "even as a beast before Thee," from her mother's womb upwards—a remote period.

The gentle laburnum at her side was slowly gilding over in the sinking sunlight, fragile and drooping and a little lackadaisical, very unlike the natty old woman, bolt upright in her basketchair. Just across the road a knot of poplars quivered to the still air; and in the pale, far heaven, companies of swallows circled with rapid, aimless swoops. Nature was slowly-very, very slowly, tranquilly, dreamingly, deliciously-settling itself to sleep; silent already but for a blackbird shrilling excitedly through the jasmine bushes by the porch.

Another bird woke up at that moment, and cried out from Suzanna's bedroom-through all the quiet little house-that it was half-past seven. Then he went to sleep again for exactly half an hour; for, like all man's imitations of God's works, he is too hideously logical to be artistic. And Mejuffrouw Varelkamp began to wonder why Betje did not bring out the 'tea-water'; for every evening the sun went down at another moment.— Providence, being all-provident, was able to superintend such irregularities, but every evening, at half-past seven to the minute, Mejuffrouw Varelkamp must have her 'tea-water,' or the little cosmos of her household arrangements could not survive the shock. "It is difficult enough for one woman to superintend one servant!" said Suzanna. "It is possible, but it is all-engrossing, and requires concentration of power and of will. And not being Providence, I cannot regulate disorder." The regulation of “disorder," as she called it, the breaking away from straight lines and simple addition,- was one of Suzanna's bugbears. And so Betje was efficiently superintended; none but she knew how engrossingly. And evening after evening, the cuckoo stepped over his threshold, and Betje out of her kitchen, so harmoniously that you might almost have fancied they walked in step.

Somebody was coming up the quiet road-a Dutch road, straight and tidy, avenue-like, between its double border of majestic beeches; somebody whose walk sounded unrhythmic through the stillness;-two people, evidently, and not walking in step, these two: one with a light, light-hearted swing; the other with a melancholy thump, and a little skip to make it good

again. But their whistling, the sweet low whistling of an old Reformed psalm-tune, was in better unison than their walking; though even here, perhaps, the softer voice seemed just a shade too low. Had there been all the falseness of a German band in that subdued music, Suzanna would not have detected it: her heart—and that far more than her ear-recognized with tranquil contentment the drawn-out melody, calm and plaintive; and her bright eye brightened, for just one little unnoticeable moment, at the accents of the clearer voice. That sudden brightening would flash every now and then over a face hard and cold enough by nature; nobody ever noticed it except Suzanna's sister, the rich widow Barsselius,-not Suzanna herself, least of all the young scapegrace who was its only cause.

Dutch psalm-singing leaves plenty of time for the singers to go to sleep and wake up again between each two succeeding notes. The whistlers came into sight before they had finished many lines. They stopped suddenly upon perceiving the old lady under the veranda, and both took off their hats.

“Dominé,” said Suzanna, "how can you countenance whistling the Word of God?"

The young man thus addressed looked up with a quiet twinkle in his eye. He had a pale face and a thoughtful smile; he was slightly deformed, and it was he that walked lame.

"With pipe and with timbrel, Juffrouw," he answered gayly. "Old Baas Vroom has just been telling me that he won't give up smoking, in spite of the doctor, because he has read in his Bible how the people praised the Lord with their pipes."

Suzanna never smiled unless she approved of the joke. She reverenced the minister, and she patronized the young believer; it was difficult sometimes properly to blend the two feelings. But at the bottom of her tough old heart she thoroughly liked her nephew's friend. "He will make a capital pastor," she said to herself unconsciously, "when he has unlearned a little of his so-called morality and taken in good sound theology instead. Not the milk of the Word with Professor Wyfel's unfiltered water, but strong meat with plenty of Old-Testament sap."

"Come in here," she said severely: "I want to talk to you about that Vrouw Wede. I told her this morning that she could not have any more needlework from the Society unless she sent her son to the catechizing. She says the boy's father won't have him go, because it tires his head. And I warned her I should

report her to the Dominé." Mejuffrouw Varelkamp's voice always dropped into exactly the same tone of hereditary reverence over that word. "Come in, Jakob, and you shall have a 'cat's tongue' [a kind of biscuit], even though it isn't Sunday."

Betje had brought out the tea things meanwhile, triumphantly, under cover of the minister's presence: the shining copper peat stove, and the costly little Japanese teacups, not much larger than a thimble, on their lacquered tray. "Take away the teastove, Betje," said Suzanna: "the peat smells." She said so every now and then,- once a week, perhaps,- being firmly convinced of the truth of her assertion; and Betje, who never believed her, and who never smelled anything under carbolic acid, whisked away the bright pail and kettle from beside her mistress's chair and brought them back again unaltered. "That is right, Betje," said Mejuffrouw. "How often must I tell you that a stove which smells of peat is full proof in itself of an incompetent servant?"

"Humph!" said Betje. For even the very best of housekeepers have their little failings and fancies and fads.

"Come in, Jakob," said Suzanna. "Not you, Arnout. You can go down to the village and fetch me a skein of my dark gray wool. The dark gray, mind, at twelve stivers. You know which."

"You know which!" The young man had grown up with the dark gray wool and the light gray wool and the blue wool for a border. Ten stivers, twelve stivers, fourteen stivers. He knew them better than his catechism, and he knew that very well too. He touched his hat slightly,- he was always courteous to his aunt, as who would not have been?—and he strolled away down the green highway into the shadows and the soft warm sunset, taking up as he went the old psalm-tune that had been on his lips before.

It was the melody of the Fifty-first Psalm. Suzanna had good cause to remember it in after years.

And it was into this calm green paradise of an old maid's heart-a paradise of straight gravel paths, and clipped box-trees, and neat dahlia beds-that soft Mephisto crept.

KNOWLEDGE

From God's Fool.' Copyright 1892, by D. Appleton & Co.

HERE was a man once a satirist. In the natural course of

TH

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time his friends slew him, and he died. And the people came and stood about his corpse. "He treated the whole round world as his football," they said indignantly, "and he kicked it." The dead man opened one eye. "But always toward

the Goal," he said.

There was a man once-a naturalist. And one day he found a lobster upon the sands of time. Society is a lobster: it crawls backwards. "How black it is!" said the naturalist. And he put it in a little pan over the hot fire of his wit. "It will turn red," he said. But it didn't. That was its shamelessness.

There was a man once a logician. He picked up a little clay ball upon the path of life. "It is a perfect little globe," said his companions. But the logician saw that it was not perfectly, mathematically round. And he took it in his hands and rubbed it between them softly. "Don't rub so hard," said his companions. And at last he desisted, and looked down upon it. It was not a bit rounder, only pushed out of shape. And he looked at his hands. They were very dirty.

There was a man once -a poet. He went wandering through the streets of the city, and he met a disciple. "Come out with

me," said the poet, "for a walk in the sand-dunes." And they went. But ere they had progressed many stages, said the disciple, "There is nothing here but sand."-"To what did I invite you?" asked the poet.-"To a walk in the sand-dunes. "—" Then do not complain," said the poet. "Yet even so your words are Do you not see it? The fault

untrue.

There is heaven above. is not heaven's. Nor the sand's."

»

MUSIC AND DISCORD

From God's Fool. Copyright 1892, by D. Appleton & Co.

HE principle remains the same," cried Lossell. "Keep out of expenses while you can."

"THE

"But don't if you can't," interrupted Cornelia tartly. Till now her husband had resolutely fastened his eyes upon the orchestra director's shining rotundity. He withdrew them for

a moment- -less than a moment-as Cornelia spoke; and their glances met. In that tenth of a second a big battle was fought and lost, far more decisive than the wordy dispute of the other night. For Hendrik read defiance in Cornelia's look, and retreated before it. In that flash of recognition he resolved to give up all attempts to browbeat her. His must be a warfare not of the broadsword, but of the stiletto. There lay discomfiture in the swift admission; not defeat as yet, but repulse. Once more Cornelia's eagle face had stood her in good stead. "After all, I can't slap her," muttered Lossell, as he scowled back towards Herr Pfuhl's bald head.

Indeed he could not.

"Can't' is an ugly word," he said to himself almost as much as to her, and he walked away in the direction of the breakfastroom. In the entry he turned round. "No concert this winter, Herr Pfuhl!" he cried; and then he shut the door quickly behind him.

He was still sufficiently master of his own house to say what he chose in it. But he was not master enough to remain where he chose after having said it.

He was far from sorry to think the door should be shut.

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The repose of the Sabbath that blessed resting on the oars - had been broken by a sudden squall. He glowered discontentedly at the breakfast things; and as he lifted the teapot lid, he sneered down upon the innocent brown liquid inside. Yet Cornelia could make good tea. And he knew it. It is a beautiful thing in a woman.

No man of nervous or artistic temperament should bind himself in wedlock before the partner of his choice has passed an examination in tea-making. And even in Koopstad there are nervous souls, though inartistic, in these days of ours when Time travels only by rail. Hendrik was of a highly nervous nature, irritable, and fifty miles an hour. He sat down to breakfast and drew the Sunday morning paper towards him. Cornelia might as well stop away as not. How unreasonable she was, and how inconsiderate! He would walk out presently and see Elias. The walk would do him good and brace him up a bit. Elias was his brother; a step-brother, but still a brother, a Lossell. Blood is thicker than water, and every now and then the old truth comes home to you. And Cornelia was fast deepening into a nuisance.

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