o Arrigo" in the regions of the blest. What comfort
the humble chronicler found whose work we have been studying none can
know.

BUTTERCUPS.

It is not the least debt we owe to the holidays that they give us our
buttercups back again. Few faces have stirred us with a keener touch of
pity through the whole of the season than the face of the pale, awkward
girl who slips by us now and then on the stairs, a face mutinous in
revolt against its imprisonment in brick and mortar, dull with the
boredom of the schoolroom, weary of the formal walk, the monotonous
drive, the inevitable practice on that hated piano, the perpetual round
of lessons from the odd creatures who leave their odder umbrellas in the
hall. It is amazingly pleasant to meet the same little face on the lawn,
and to see it blooming with new life at the touch of freedom and fresh
air. It blooms with a sense of individuality, a sense of power. In the
town the buttercup was nobody, silent, unnoticed, lost in the bustle and
splendour of elder sisterdom. Here among the fields and the hedges she
is queen. Her very laugh, the reckless shout that calls for mamma's
frown and dooms the governess to a headache, rings out like a claim of
possession. Here in her own realm she rushes at once to the front, and
if we find ourselves enjoying a scamper over the common or a run down
the hill-side, it is the buttercup that leads the way.

All the silent defiance of her town bondage vanishes in the chatty
familiarities of home. She has a story about the elm and the pond, she
knows where Harry landed the trout last year, she is intimate with the
keeper, and hints to us his mysterious hopes about the pheasants. She is
great in short cuts through the woods, and has made herself wondrous
lurking-places which she betrays under solemn promises of secrecy. She
is a friend of every dog about the place, and if the pony lies nearest
to her heart her lesser affections range over a world of favourites. It
is hard to remember the pale, silent, schoolgirl of town in the vivid,
chatty little buttercup who hurries one from the parrot to the pigeon,
from the stables to the farm, and who knows and describes the merits of
every hound in the kennels.

It is natural enough, that the dethroned beauties who meet us at
luncheon should wonder at our enthusiasm for nymphs of bread-and-butter,
and ask with a certain severity of scorn the secret of our happy
mornings. The secret is simply that the b