ve them. We can most of us forgive our brother his transgressions,
having once got even with him. In a tiny Swiss village, behind the angle
of the school-house wall, I came across a maiden crying bitterly, her
head resting on her arm. I asked her what had happened. Between her
sobs she explained that a school companion, a little lad about her own
age, having snatched her hat from her head, was at that moment playing
football with it the other side of the wall. I attempted to console her
with philosophy. I pointed out to her that boys would be boys--that to
expect from them at that age reverence for feminine headgear was to seek
what was not conformable with the nature of boy. But she appeared to
have no philosophy in her. She said he was a horrid boy, and that she
hated him. It transpired it was a hat she rather fancied herself in. He
peeped round the corner while we were talking, the hat in his hand. He
held it out to her, but she took no notice of him. I gathered the
incident was closed, and went my way, but turned a few steps further on,
curious to witness the end. Step by step he approached nearer, looking a
little ashamed of himself; but still she wept, her face hidden in her
arm.

He was not expecting it: to all seeming she stood there the
personification of the grief that is not to be comforted, oblivious to
all surroundings. Incautiously he took another step. In an instant she
had "landed" him over the head with a long narrow wooden box containing,
one supposes, pencils and pens. He must have been a hard-headed
youngster, the sound of the compact echoed through the valley. I met her
again on my way back.

"Hat much damaged?" I inquired.

"Oh, no," she answered, smiling; "besides, it was only an old hat. I've
got a better one for Sundays."

I often feel philosophical myself; generally over a good cigar after a
satisfactory dinner. At such times I open my Marcus Aurelius, my pocket
Epicurus, my translation of Plato's "Republic." At such times I agree
with them. Man troubles himself too much about the unessential. Let us
cultivate serenity. Nothing can happen to us that we have not been
constituted by Nature to sustain. That foolish farm labourer, on his
precarious wage of twelve shillings a week: let him dwell rather on the
mercies he enjoys. Is he not spared all anxiety concerning safe
investment of capital yielding four per cent.? Is not the sunrise and
the sunset for him also? Man