erbs, but
the schoolmistress is very mean, although she can smile so sweetly. I
begged her to lend me a handful of herbs. 'Lend!' she exclaimed, 'I have
nothing to lend. I could not even lend you a shriveled apple, my dear
woman.' But now I can lend her ten, or a whole sackful, for which I'm
very glad. It makes me laugh to think of it." Then she gave him a hearty
kiss.

"Well, I like all this," said both the Englishmen; "always going down
the hill and yet always merry. It's worth the money to see it." So they
paid a hundredweight of gold to the peasant who, whatever he did, was
not scolded but kissed.

Yes, it always pays best when the wife sees and maintains that her
husband knows best and that whatever he does is right.

This is a story which I heard when I was a child. And now you have heard
it, too, and know that "What the goodman does is always right."

[Illustration]

THE OLD STREET LAMP

DID you ever hear the story of the old street lamp? It is not remarkably
interesting, but for once you may as well listen to it.

It was a most respectable old lamp, which had seen many, many years of
service and now was to retire with a pension. It was this very evening
at its post for the last time, giving light to the street. Its feelings
were something like those of an old dancer at the theater who is dancing
for the last time and knows that on the morrow she will be in her
garret, alone and forgotten.

The lamp had very great anxiety about the next day, for it knew that it
had to appear for the first time at the town hall to be inspected by the
mayor and the council, who were to decide whether it was fit for
further service; whether it was good enough to be used to light the
inhabitants of one of the suburbs, or in the country, at some factory.
If the lamp could not be used for one of these purposes, it would be
sent at once to an iron foundry to be melted down. In this latter case
it might be turned into anything, and it wondered very much whether it
would then be able to remember that it had once been a street lamp. This
troubled it exceedingly.

Whatever might happen, it seemed certain that the lamp would be
separated from the watchman and his wife, whose family it looked upon as
its own. The lamp had first been hung up on the very evening that the
watchman, then a robust young man, had entered upon the duties of his
office. Ah, well! it was a very long time since one became a lamp and
the other