Genre Fairy Tale. Page - 3

e to me without scruple. Seems only the other day that I was ordering my own kit, Vincent, previous to sailing for Bombay. There, off with you. I'm sure you want to digest the news."

I did--badly, but I could not do it, for the news had already leaked out, and there was Morton at the head of all the other fellows, ready to raise a hearty cheer for the new officer about to depart from their midst.

The cheering was followed by a chairing, and when at last I escaped, I hurried off to my room with the whirl of confusion greater than ever, so that I began to wonder whether it was not all a dream.

CHAPTER TWO.

I was horribly suspicious about that military tailor in Saint James's Street. Over and over again I felt that he must be laughing at me, as he passed his tape round my chest and waist.

But he was a pattern of smooth politeness, and as serious as a judge, while I sought for little bits of encouragement, painfull

old head at her young fellow-passenger whenever they caught each other's eye. Betty was sorry to lose this new friend so soon, and felt more lonely than ever. She wished that they had known each other's names, and especially that there had been time to hear the whole of the boat story.

Now that there was no one else in the car seat it seemed to be a good time to look over some things in the pretty London traveling bag, which had been pushed under its owner's feet until then. Betty found a small bit of chocolate for herself by way of dessert to the early luncheon, and made an entry in a tidy little account book which she meant to keep carefully until she should be with papa again. It was a very interesting bag, with a dressing-case fitted into it and a writing case, all furnished with glass and ivory and silver fittings and yet very plain, and nice, and convenient. Betty's dear friend, Mrs. Duncan, had given it to her that very spring, before she thought of coming to America, and on the voyage it had b

f senseless and half cruel hazing that has no purpose exceptthe amusement of the yearlings. Now, I think I've made myselfclear. At least, I've said all that I have to say on the subject.For the rest, I'll listen to the ideas of the rest of you."

There was silence, broken at last by Greg, who said:

"I think I agree, in the main, with Prescott."

"Oh, of course," grunted Dobbs, in a tone which might mean thatGreg Holmes was but the "shadow" of Dick Prescott.

Greg looked quickly at Dobbs, but saw nothing in the other's facethat justified him in taking open offence.

Somehow, though none of the others said anything to that effect,Cadet Prescott began to feel that he was a bit in the way at aconference of this sort. He didn't rise to leave at once, buthe swung around on his campstool near the door.

Without throwing the flap open, Prescott peeped through a slit-likeopening. As he did so he saw something that made his eyes flash.

The rain was pouring a little less heavily now. Down t

CHAPTER II.

ROSAMUND TAKES THE LEAD.

Before that day had come to an end, Lucy had discovered how true were Phyllis Flower's words. For Rosamund Cunliffe, without making herself in the least disagreeable, without saying one single rude thing, yet managed to take the lead, and that so effectively that even Lucy herself found that she could not help following in her train.

For instance, after dinner, when the girls--all of them rather tired, and perhaps some of them a little cross, and no one exactly knowing what to do--clustered about the open drawing-room windows, it was Rosamund who proposed that the rugs should be rolled back and that they should have a dance.

Lucy opened her eyes. Nobody before had ever dared to make such a suggestion in the house of Sunnyside. Lucy, it is true, had dancing lessons from a master who came once a week to instruct her and other girls in the winter season, and she had occasionally gone

on a bit here and there once in a hundred years, until finally we have this charmingly irregular and dilapidated whole. You go up three steps into Mrs. Heaven's room, down two into mine, while Phoebe's is up in a sort of turret with long, narrow lattices opening into the creepers. There are crooked little stair-cases, passages that branch off into other passages and lead nowhere in particular; I can't think of a better house in which to play hide and seek on a wet day. In front, what was once, doubtless, a green, is cut up into greens; to wit, a vegetable garden, where the onions, turnips, and potatoes grow cosily up to the very door-sill; the utilitarian aspect of it all being varied by some scarlet-runners and a scattering of poppies on either side of the path.

The Belgian hares have their habitation in a corner fifty feet distant; one large enclosure for poultry lies just outside the sweetbrier hedge; the others, with all the houses and coops, are in the meadow at the back, where also our tumbler pi

tack-yard, behind the lengthy range of stables, two men were thatching. One lay sprawling on the crest of the rick, the other stood perched on a ladder at a lower level.

The latter, small, old, with shrewd nut-brown countenance, was Tammas Thornton,, who had served the Moores of Kenmuir for more than half a century. The other, on top of the stack, wrapped apparently in gloomy meditation, was Sam'l Todd. A solid Dales-- man, he, with huge hands and hairy arms; about his face an uncomely aureole of stiff, red hair; and on his features, deep-seated, an expression of resolute melancholy.

"Ay, the Gray Dogs, bless 'em!" the old man was saying. "Yo' canna beat 'em not nohow. Known 'em ony time this sixty year, I have, and niver knew a bad un yet. Not as I say, mind ye, as any on 'em cooms up to Rex son o' Rally. Ah, he was a one, was Rex! We's never won Cup since his day."

"Nor niver shall agin, yo' may depend," said the other gloomily.

Tammas clucked irritably.

"G'long, Sam'! Tod

road and that was the last that was heard of him. His surmises were right. The Biggses never even looked for him.

[Illustration]

Billy at the Soda Fountain

After Billy Whiskers had left Mr. Biggs, he trotted slowly down the road wondering where he would get his next meal for he well knew he would never dare go back to Mr. Biggses after upsetting him in the geranium bed and causing all the mischief he had there that day. But being a goat of a cheerful frame of mind and used to looking out for himself, he did not worry much, and decided he would enter the first garden he came to, and make a free lunch off the vegetables, or go into a turnip patch and feast on them for if there was anything he doted on it was nice, sweet turnips, fresh from the fields.

He had gone some distance, and no patch or garden appearing that was not enclosed by a high, barbed-wire fence, he commenced to get discouraged. Feeling hungry and thirsty he was about wishing he had behaved himself at Mr.

atting with her cousins, or other friends, now strolling through the great parlours with their wonderful decorations of banked roses and garland-draped ceilings.

Dinner was early that night, as the ceremony was to be performed at eight o'clock, and after dinner Patty flew to her room to don her own beautiful new gown.

This dress delighted Patty's beauty-loving heart. It was a white tulle sprinkled with silver, and its soft, dainty glitter seemed to Patty like moonlight on the snow. Her hair was done low on her neck, in a most becoming fashion, and her only ornament was a necklace of pearls which had belonged to her mother, and which her father had given her that very day. The first Mrs. Fairfield had died when Patty was a mere baby, so of course she had no recollection of her, but she had always idealised the personality of her mother, and she took the beautiful pearls from her father with almost a feeling of reverence as she touched them.

"I'm so glad it's Nan you're going to marry, Papa

n our house, when I was living with my sister in Hingham, before the war. Hingham used to be famous for its ghost stories; an old house without its ghost was thought to lack historic tone and finish."

Gentleman Jo took a story-telling attitude, and a number of the pupils gathered around him.

GENTLEMAN JO'S GHOST STORY.

I shall never forget the scene of excitement, when one morning Biddy, our domestic, entered the sitting-room, her head bobbing, her hair flying, and her cap perched upon the top of her head, and exclaimed: "Wurrah! I have seen a ghoust, and it's lave the hoose I must. Sich a night! I'd niver pass anither the like of it for the gift o' the hoose. Bad kick to ye, an' the hoose is haunted for sure."

"Why, Biddy, what have you seen?" asked my sister, in alarm.

"Seen? An' sure I didn't see nothin'. I jist shet me eyes and hid mesilf under the piller. But it was awful. An' the way it clanked its chain! O murther!"

This last remark was rather startling. Spirit

d with a voice of wondrous sweetness: "Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."

Cristobal repeated the words, a soft light stealing over his face. "I will remember," he said, looking up to meet the pleading eyes of the Child: but, lo! the whole face had melted into the aureola; nothing was left but light. Yet Cristobal was filled with a new joy; and, as he opened his eyes, his dream--if dream it were--changed, becoming as sweet and solemn as a prayer. It seemed to him that the roof of the cottage glittered with stars, and was no longer a roof, but the boundless sky; and, afar off, like remembered music, a voice fell on his ear, "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your trespasses."

Cristobal arose, and, although still blind, walked in light. "It is the aureola which has stolen into my heart," thought Cristobal. "The pain and hate are all gone. Now I am ready for Christmas. I wish I could help poor Jasper, who has such a weight of