e young men to be pure, and the maidens
brave, greatly disturbed a member of his congregation, who thought
that the great preacher had made a slip of the tongue.

"That the girls should have purity, and the boys courage, is what you
would say, good Father?"

"Nature has done that," was the reply; "I meant what I said."

In good sooth, a young maid is all the better for learning some
robuster virtues than maidenliness and not to move the antimacassars.
And the robuster virtues require some fresh air and freedom. As, on
the other hand, Jackanapes (who had a boy's full share of the little
beast and the young monkey in his natural composition) was none the
worse, at his tender years, for learning some maidenliness--so far as
maidenliness means decency, pity, unselfishness and pretty behavior.

And it is due to him to say that he was an obedient boy, and a boy
whose word could be depended on, long before his grandfather the
General came to live at the Green.

He was obedient; that is he did what his great aunt told him. But--oh
dear! oh dear!--the pranks he played, which it had never entered into
her head to forbid!

It was when he had just been put into skeletons (frocks never suited
him) that he became very friendly with Master Tony Johnson, a younger
brother of the young gentleman who sat in the puddle on purpose. Tony
was not enterprising, and Jackanapes led him by the nose. One summer's
evening they were out late, and Miss Jessamine was becoming anxious,
when Jackanapes presented himself with a ghastly face all besmirched
with tears. He was unusually subdued.

"I'm afraid," he sobbed; "if you please, I'm very much afraid that
Tony Johnson's dying in the churchyard."

Miss Jessamine was just beginning to be distracted, when she smelt
Jackanapes.

"You naughty, naughty boys! Do you mean to tell me that you've been
smoking?"

"Not pipes," urged Jackanapes; "upon my honor, Aunty, not pipes. Only
segars like Mr. Johnson's! and only made of brown paper with a very,
very little tobacco from the shop inside them."

Whereupon, Miss Jessamine sent a servant to the churchyard, who found
Tony Johnson lying on a tomb-stone, very sick, and having ceased to
entertain any hopes of his own recovery.

If it could be possible that any "unpleasantness" could arise between
two such amiable neighbors as Miss Jessamine and Mrs. Johnson--and if
the still more incredible paradox can be that ladies may differ over a
point on whic