mystere!"

Lilly fainted outright, and we had a time of it generally. In the midst
of it all, Uncle David said dryly, "Well, Nanny, I suppose you may hand
me over that bundle of shirts now."

* * * * *

It may be worth mentioning that years after we met the real Gardines,
and very charming people we found them. And it is I who am now Mrs.
Clement Gardine, and am living on my husband's Louisiana plantation. As
for Lilly, she can laugh now as she thinks of the accomplished rogues
who deceived us so nicely, but she has developed a pronounced hatred for
the French language, and I don't believe any one could ever win her
heart whose initials happened to be "C. G."

SHERWOOD BONNER.

AN ENGLISH TEACHER IN THE UNITED STATES.

When I landed in Boston, in January, 1874, it was neither to "make my
fortune" nor to hunt buffaloes or bears in the neighborhood of that
classic city. Nevertheless, just to show my readers that there is a
measure of truth in the prevalent impressions here of John Bull's
general ignorance and apathy as to what is going on in America, I
willingly admit that not till I had been a few days resident in
Cambridge did the unpalatable fact fully dawn upon me that the country
was undergoing the ordeal of "hard times"--a phrase, by the way, which I
have had dinned into my ears almost incessantly as far back as I can
remember. Besides, although I could not help knowing that the States
have been peopled by Europeans, I was hardly prepared to find Americans
proper--the descendants of Revolutionary ancestors--in such an appalling
minority; and it certainly surprised me to find that Ireland and Germany
were responsible for so large a proportion of the population. When I
walked in the streets or visited the stores or public buildings
disillusion trod close on my heels: I was constantly accosting, or being
accosted by, persons of Irish or German or other foreign nationality,
who, though displaying characteristics that somehow distinguished them
from their countrymen in Europe, did not fall in with my ideal of the
American people. I do not mean precisely that they fell short of that
ideal, but simply that "the shoe wouldn't fit," to use a common
expression. I began at last, in my bewilderment, to inquire whether
there were any Yankees in or about Boston, anyhow; and thus it
transpired that after a few days "prospecting" I finally transferred
myself and my fortunes from Bo