d surprise Melissa.
But at the door he stopped as suddenly as if he had been shot. A
deep bass voice was uttering words that sounded strangely familiar.

"'Dear and esteemed lady,'" he heard. Cautiously he tip-toed across
the hall. A phonograph was on the table in front of Melissa. As he
bent forward the proposal "to a dignified and refined lady" came to
an end. Tenderly Melissa put both arms about the shining horn of the
phonograph and kissed it!

The sight was too much for the captain. With one bound, he cleared
the threshold and entered the cosy sitting room.

"M'lissy Macy," he declared boldly, "I ain't goin' to have you
wastin' kisses on an old phonograph when I'm right here. Where'd you
find that record, M'lissy?" he asked at last.

Melissa blushed delightfully. "Mis' Crowell heard you and told me
you was practisin' how to propose and, after you went away, I went
and got every single one of them records," confessed Melissa.
"I've played 'em over and over, even the 'darn it!' one. I know that
proposal by heart."

"So do I," responded Captain Enoch grimly, as he salvaged another
kiss. "I've be'n a reg'lar old putty-head," he admitted with
unsparing honesty, "but if you'll promise to teach me, I'd like to
learn a whole lot more by heart."

"I'll do my best," promised Melissa mischievously.

BY TELEPHONE

E.M. CHASE

Time--Very recently.

Place--A flat in Back Bay.

"Bessie Lane, where in the world did you drop from?"

"The station just now and I'm famished."

"I haven't a thing for lunch but you take off your wraps while I
attend to things."

"There, I've ordered a delicious lunch and it will be here in
fifteen or twenty minutes. What a handy thing a telephone is."

"Oh, yes, very handy indeed."

"Why the sarcasm, my dear Bessie?"

"You seem to forget that I live in the country."

"But not out of reach of 'phones, Bessie."

"No, but we are on a sixteen-party line with eighteen other
subscribers. Not long ago I went to the dentist and had a tooth
treated. The next morning I awoke with a toothache. About the middle
of the forenoon, nine-thirty to be exact, I thought I would call up
the dentist to find out if the treatment ought to make my tooth ache.
I gave the bell a vigorous ring--"

"Why should you ring a bell to telephone?"

"My dear citified Annie, we do not run our universe by electricity
as you do in the city, and it is our only means of attracting
'central.' I rang the bell