und, on
looking up the statistics, that in an average season out of every
twenty-two days eighteen will always be stormy, lowering and dismal.
No, don't camp out unless you can make up your mind beforehand to every
kind of discomfort and inconvenience to mar all that is beautiful and
all that is pleasing. I speak of course of the localities I have known
in my three several attempts. _They say_ it is different in other parts
of the region. But when you have plank roads and first-class hotels and
all the modern conveniences, I don't call that going into the woods and
camping out. The real thing is not very much fun except in the
retrospect, when you can thank your stars that you got out alive. For
the greater part it is a snare and a delusion. But if you still pine
for the forests and streams and the free out-of-door life, I don't wish
to discourage you, and you know I never give advice.

Your affectionate cousin, F.G.

UNREFORMED SPELLING.

A little note has come to me which gives an entertaining glimpse of the
average ability of a class. "John Stubbs x his mark" is obviously
"low-watermark," but there are levels between that and high-school
possibilities which we cannot often measure. The note is written on
fair white paper and had a white envelope. The writer is American, the
wife of a fisherman, and about thirty years old, though the handwriting
is like that of the old ladies of our grandmothers' time. It is given
of course, in the full sense, _literatim_, and is offered for the
encouragement--or the despair--of the Spelling Reform Association. The
little touch of pathos makes one read with respect:

June the 2.
Dear Madam

Will you pleas to enclose the 100 dollars in an envelope, so that the
little boy wont loose it: the little dog was too years old the first of
May: and my babey too the 24 of April, they have always ben together
and he is verey intelegent indead and you can learn him eneything you
would wish to fealing asuared he will receve everey kindness you have
the best wishes of
Mrs. Hattie ----.

Perhaps it is well to add, the "100" means ten. The hero is a black
Skye, long-haired, plume-tailed and soft-eyed. What his views were upon
removal from the back alley of his youth to a well-appointed though by
no means luxurious home he never said, but his investigation was
comically thorough, winding up in dumb amaz