struggling young men, the man of power, the Christian cosmopolitan, strode down the street, and was lost in the mist.

I could not help calling to mind a pretty story told of him while he was travelling in the West. As the train stopped at some forsaken hamlet in California, twenty girls were seen upon the platform. On hearing that Edward E. Hale was to pass through, they had begged off from school in order to greet him. They were “King’s Daughters,” and Doctor Hale was their inspiration and their chief. Each girl was loaded with a different flower, with which she garlanded her hero.

Such a tender and reverential free-masonry as this, founded by himself, greets him daily through the mail, and overwhelms him when he travels from his own home.

As the author of “The Man Without a Country,” “In His Name,” and “Ten Times One is Ten,” he sways our imagination and our hearts. But let him also be known as a man content to be a parish minister, and as one who never fails to lend a hand when the chance is given to him.

The last good-by had been said, and the comfortable country carriage, drawn by its two glossy bay horses, had disappeared around a knoll.

“They is do’rn,” remarked the baby, as if just in possession of a solemn fact.

“Torse they is do’rn, you blessed baby,” answered Florence, his fifteen-year-old sister, stooping down and lifting him in her strong arms and kissing him.

The baby, let me remark, was a sturdy boy of four, with bright brown eyes and red cheeks—cheeks so plump that when you had a side view of his face you could only see the tip of his little pug nose.

“Well, if ever anybody has earned a holiday, they are father and mother,” said Cassie.

“Cassie, dear, your sentiment is better than your grammar,” laughed Rose, the eldest of the three sisters.

“Never you mind my grammar, Miss Eglantine. I mayn’t have much ‘book larnin’,’ but I’ve got a head on my shoulders, as father frequently remarks—which is a good thing, for I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the glass if I hadn’t—and besides, how could I do my hair up so neatly, (Cassie’s hair was the joke of the family) if I hadn’t? And now I’m going up-stairs to cry, and I’ll be down in three minutes to help with the dishes,” and the giddy girl flew into the house and disappeared.

At the expiration of the three minutes which Cassie had set apart as sacred to her grief, she reappeared, sniffing audibly, but otherwise cheerful.

“Now, girls, I say let us buzz through the work like a swarm of industrious bumble-bees, and then go down to the creek lots and put in the day gathering nuts. Last night, as Ned and I came through them, the nuts were falling like hail, and we can pick up our winter’s supply in a few hours.”

This was favorably received, for they were all—even Rose—children enough to enjoy a long day in the autumn woods. We all know that willing hands make light work, and the morning’s task was quickly done; a basket of lunch was put up, and the girls, with the baby, were soon scampering through the meadow toward the little creek, whose borders for miles around were famous for their wealth of nuts.