able business, and there was
nothing better for me, a younger son, to do than to become a soldier or
to emigrate.

"While a mere lad I came to America, and, as an importer of German
goods, have been fairly successful. My inherited love of hunting has not
been lost, and I spend a part of each autumn in the Adirondacks.

"A year ago, my brother, the present head of the family, sent me a pup
from his kennel of wolf-dogs. For the purpose of giving the poor animal
a change from city streets, I brought him to my cottage on Saranac Lake.
But I did not expect to hunt with the dog, for I supposed he had a
spirit above the game of this region.

"Several days ago a deer was chased near my door, and Wolfram put after
it. We could not tell which way he had gone, for my father's wolf-dogs
were not taught to bark, as among the great firs of the Black Forest
horsemen can follow the chase, which seldom goes out of sight.

"The day after the hound disappeared I set out to find him, and now you
tell me that one of the dogs which my father considered able to battle
with a wolf has been killed by the thrust of a deer's horn!"

AVERAGE

A very common word, to-be-sure, and well understood as to its
application. But after fair translation of its old French
body--"aver"--into English, and only "horse" is found, and the word
becomes "horsage," the change tends to confusion. None the less,
"horsage" and "average" are identical, since in the old-time French an
"aver" was a horse. It was also a horse in the Scotch dictionaries, and
in one of Burns' poems, "A Dream," he alludes to a horse as a "noble
aiver."

In olden times in Europe a tenant was bound to do certain work for the
lord of the manor--largely in carting grain and turf--horse-work; and in
the yearly settlement of accounts the just proportion of the large and
small work performed was estimated according to the work done by "avers"
(horses); hence our common word "average."

[_This Story began in No. 43._]

LELIA'S HERO:

or,

"We Girls and Boys in Florida."

by ELSIE LEIGH WHITTLESEY,

Author of "My Brother and I,"
"A Home in the Wilds," etc., etc.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Gloomy Forebodings.

"Oh, please, do hush, Bess! You chatter so I can't hear myself think,"
said Lelia to Bess, one afternoon, about two weeks after their early