top, and
rather long at the sides and back. It was Gogo Pasquier. He seemed a
very nice little boy. He had pen and ink and copy-book before him, and
a gilt-edged volume bound in red morocco. I knew it at a glance; it
was 'Elegant Extracts.' The dog Medor lay asleep in the shade. The
bees were droning among the nasturtiums and convolvulus.

A little girl ran up the avenue from the porter's lodge and pushed the
garden gate, which rang the bell as it opened, and she went into the
garden, and I followed her; but she took no notice of me, nor did the
others. It was Mimsey Seraskier.

I went and sat at my mother's feet, and looked long in her face.

I must not speak to her nor touch her--not even touch her busy hand
with my lips, or I should "blur the dream."

I got up and looked over the boy Gogo's shoulder. He was translating
Gray's Elegy into French; he had not got very far, and seemed to be
stumped by the line--

"And leaves the world to darkness and to me."

Mimsey was silently looking over his other shoulder, her thumb in her
mouth, one arm on the back of his chair. She seemed to be stumped
also; it was an awkward line to translate.

I stooped and put my hand to Medor's nose, and felt his warm breath.
He wagged his rudiment of a tail, and whimpered in his sleep. Mimsey
said:--

"Regarde Medor, comme il remue la queue! _C'est le Prince Charmant qui
lui chatouille le bout du nez._"

Said my mother, who had not spoken hitherto:--

"Do speak English, Mimsey, please."

O my God! My mother's voice, so forgotten, yet so familiar, so
unutterably dear! I rushed to her and threw myself on my knees at her
feet, and seized her hand and kissed it, crying, "Mother, mother!"

A strange blur came over everything; the sense of reality was lost.
All became as a dream--a beautiful dream, but only a dream; and I
woke.

BARTY JOSSELIN AT SCHOOL

From 'The Martian'

From Harper's Magazine. Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers

Indeed, even from his early boyhood, he was the most extraordinarily
gifted creature I have ever known, or even heard of; a kind of
spontaneous humorous Crichton to whom all things came easily--and life
itself as an uncommonly good joke. During that summer term of 1847 I
did not see very much of him. He was in the class below mine, and took
up with Laferte and little Bussy-Rabutin, who were first-rate boys,
and laughed at everything he said, and worshiped him. So did everybody
else, soone