themselves that could b'lieve such things of Jicksy. The probabilities of the case made no impression whatever on Grazella's mind.

The minister's wife, who had taken a fancy to the girl, offered her consolation at the sewing circle, which met at the Trueworthys' two days after Jicksy's departure.

"You mustn't think we hold you responsible for what he has done," she said, gently. "He is only your cousin."

Grazella stood up, her little bony cheeks aflame. "He ain't neither only my cousin. I just let on, because he'd got up in the world, and I didn't want folks heavin' it at him that he had a sister that tended for Judy Magrath. He's my own brother as ever was in the world, and when folks are thinkin' he's a thief, I just want 'em to know that he's my brother. Jicksy is smarter'n other folks, and you never know what he'll do next; but I told Gideon that he'd find him an awful square partner, and I stick to it—now."

There were melancholy head-shakings in the sewing circle; in fact, the whole circle shook its head as one woman; but it was whispered that the girl was probably honest; that the little scamp had deceived her, as he deceived others.

But at that very time an exciting rumor was circulating about Bayberry Corner. Iky Snell shouted it at the open window of the room where the sewing circle sat at supper.

A boy had been seen on the turnpike-road coming towards Sweet Apple Hill, leading a giraffe.

"Looks as if he had a circus procession all to himself," declared Iky, enviously; and if several persons who had seen him were not very greatly mistaken, the boy was Jicksy.

"If some boys should come home leadin' a giraffe, why, I might be kind of surprised," remarked grandpa; "but it does seem jest like Jicksy."

Grazella, who had been trying to swallow blackberry tart mingled with tears, tried very hard to be calm, though her thin little face paled and flushed. "You never know what Jicksy will do next," she said, proudly.

Sweet Apple Hill turned out; so did half Bayberry Corner; every one ran towards the turnpike-road; even the sewing-circle supper-table was deserted in undignified haste.

It was Jicksy, footsore and begrimed, and accommodating his gait to the tread of a creature whose body seemed to be set upon stilts, and whose neck might, as Phemie declared, be tied into a double bow-knot. The animal was lame, and its head wagged in a curious fashion.

Gideon, seeing his partner afar off, felt a thrill of delight in his honesty, which seemed probable since he was returning, but it was followed by a painful doubt concerning his "business bump." Jicksy had wished to buy Aaron Green's old horse, which Aaron would sell for twenty dollars. It was a good horse for the money, and it could easily be kept on their little farm; and the old blue cart in the barn could be repaired at very small expense, and perhaps what Jicksy said was true—that you had to have some style to a business to advertise it. Nevertheless, Gideon had not consented to buy Aaron Green's horse; he had felt that the twenty-four dollars and sixty-four cents must go under his bed-ticking with the seven dollars and fifty-nine cents, where he could count it every night. He felt a wild fear that Jicksy had bought the giraffe to draw the blue cart, following his theory that there was nothing like attracting attention to your business.

"I didn't run away!" Jicksy was saying angrily, as Gideon pressed through the crowd. "Gid understood that it was business that kept me, didn't you Gid?" But Gideon looked away; he couldn't say that he had understood, and he was certain that he didn't understand now about that giraffe.

"I heard that McColloh's show was stranded down to Westport; that's the show I b'longed to once; couldn't pay their bills, and the sheriff was after 'em; I thought maybe I could get a horse, cheap." There was silence as the crowd listened to Jicksy's explanation; only now and then a shrill question interrupted him. "Foot it? Of course I did." (It was twenty miles to Westport.) "I wasn't goin' to fool away the firm's money. Comin' back I had the giraffe; they're slow travellers, and Squashy is lame. There wasn't any horse that I could buy—trained horses and Shetland-ponies, and they were selling high. Squashy is lame and old, and sometimes he gets ugly." (The crowd withdrew from Squashy's vicinity.) "Me and Nick Pridgett could always manage him. Nick is partner in a show now, and it's down to Hebron. I saw that in the paper. When Jim McColloh says to me, 'There's old Squashy; gets on to his tears worse than ever; you can have him for twenty dollars if you want him.' A giraffe for twenty dollars! If you knew the show business as well as I do you'd know that was a big bargain." Jicksy addressed this remark to Gideon, but his partner was unresponsive; he saw, in fancy, the giraffe harnessed to the old blue cart, the equipage was attended by crowds; but the berry business was not a circus. "Quicker 'n scat I give him the money," pursued Jicksy, and Gideon groaned. "Then I telegraphed to Nick Pridgett, 'Will you pay fifty dollars for Squashy?' 'Bring him along and the money is yours,' telegraphs Nick. So I'm bringin' him along." The crowd cheered; Gideon's face brightened; this was business. "And I've got to bring him along pretty lively," continued Jicksy, "for there isn't a building in town big enough to hold him, unless it's the church."

That made every one think of the watch; but, queerly enough, just at that moment the minister was seen running in a very undignified manner up the lane. In dressing to officiate at a wedding at the Port he had discovered his watch, chain, and all, in one of his coat-tail pockets. He said that, knowing it was his duty to put it in some unusual place, and being absent-minded, he had stowed it away there.

Grazella hushed every one's exclamations before they reached Jicksy's ears. She said her cousin was proud, and she didn't want him to know that he had been suspected of stealing. Her cousin! The sewing-circle ladies looked at each other; but she held her head in the air, and looked so stern that no one dared, or had the heart to contradict her. Jicksy was up in the world again, and she was not going to have him dragged down by a sister who had tended for Judy Magrath! When Jicksy returned from Westport, bringing a dollar's worth of blue paint to paint the old cart, the partnership was settled upon a firm basis. Jicksy said Bayberry Corner was a place that suited him "down to the ground," and the minister's wife had taken Grazella to live with her. That made him want to stay; they hadn't any real own folks, but just each other. Gideon said that seeing Jicksy had put some capital into the business, as you might say, henceforth they would share and share alike.

FOUR YOUNG RUSSIAN HEROES.

BY V. GRIBAYEDOFF.

he death last spring, at Astrakhan, in southeastern Russia, of Captain Nicholas Novikoff, a retired naval officer, recalls some of the principal events of the Crimean war. Novikoff was the last survivor of a famous quartet of heroes. They were cabin-boys on board ships of the Russian Black Sea fleet at the outbreak of the war against Turkey, in 1853, and their ages ranged at the time from twelve to fourteen years. The other three were Vasili Rinitzik, Ivan Robert, and Sergius Farasiouk.

The day after the Russian defeat at the Alma, on September 20, 1854, Menschikoff, Commander-in-chief, sent peremptory orders to Admiral Korniloff in Sebastopol, the great Crimean port of war, to sink in the passage, at the entry of the "Roads," his five oldest line-of-battle ships and two frigates, in order to prevent the Anglo-French fleet from forcing an entrance. These orders