as completely prostrated by his wife's death, and
are told in calm and even tones that he is 'beginning to take notice.'
You tell her that one of the best fellows in the class has been unjustly
expelled, and that the class are to wear crape on their left arms for
thirty days, and that you only hope that the President will meet you in
the college-yard and ask why you wear it; to all of which she replies
soothingly, 'I wouldn't do that, Henry; for the President might tell you
not to mourn, as your friend was not lost, only _gone before_.' You tell
her of your stunned sensation on finding some of your literary work
complimented in the _Nation_, and she exclaims: 'I should think so! It
must be like meeting an Indian and seeing him put his hand into his
no-pocket to draw out a scented pocket-handkerchief, instead of a
tomahawk.' Or she writes that two Sunday-schools are trying to do all
the good they can, but that each is determined at any cost to do more
good than the other."

* * * * *

I have selected several specimens of this higher type of humor.

Mrs. Ellen H. Rollins was pre-eminently gifted in this direction. The
humor in her exquisite "New England Bygones" is so interwoven with the
simple pathos of her memories that it cannot be detached without
detriment to both. But I will venture to select three sketches from

OLD-TIME CHILD LIFE.

BY E.H. ARR.

Betsy had the reddest hair of any girl I ever knew. It was quite short
in front, and she had a way of twisting it, on either temple, into two
little buttons, which she fastened with pins. The rest of it she brought
quite far up on the top of her head, where she kept it in place with a
large-sized horn comb. Her face was covered with freckles, and her eyes,
in winter, were apt to be inflamed. She always seemed to have a mop in
her hand, and she had no respect for paint. She was as neat as old Dame
Safford herself, and was continually "straightening things out," as she
called it. Her temper, like her hair, was somewhat fiery; and when her
work did not suit her, she was prone to a gloomy view of life. If she
was to be believed, things were always "going to wrack and ruin" about
the house; and she had a queer way of taking time by the forelock. In
the morning it was "going on to twelve o'clock," and at noon it was
"going on to midnight."

She kept her six kitchen chairs in a row on one side of the room, and
as many flatirons in a line