he house. Miss Amanda looked after them, and blessed
them; then she gazed upon the sweet peas on the ground; then she looked
once more upon the old dial, still bravely marking each sunny hour; and
then, slowly and gradually, Miss Amanda lost consciousness, without
saying to herself, 'Seven o'clock' or 'Fifty years' or any other period
of time.

"That is the end," said the young lady.

"And quite time!" exclaimed the Master of the House. "Madam," he said,
turning to his wife, "did you know of all this knowledge of which your
daughter seems possessed--of boy's nature, and woman's love, and the
human heart, and all the rest of it? I can't fathom her with my longest
line!"

"You may as well give up all idea of that sort of sounding," said the
Mistress of the House. "There is no line long enough to fathom the human
heart."

"I am thinking," said John Gayther, as he rattled the seeds in the pan,
"whether it was worth while for Amanda to become conscious for so short
a time, and just to hear a tale like that."

"Was it worth while to learn that the man she had wanted to love her had
really loved her?" asked the Daughter of the House, eagerly.

"It doesn't seem the sort of love to wait fifty years to hear about,"
said John. "I don't like the way they have in novels of making folks
keep back things that men and women couldn't help telling."

"Then you don't like my story, John," said the Daughter of the House, in
a disappointed tone.

"Indeed, but I do, miss," he replied quickly. "As a story it is just
perfect; but as real doings it doesn't pan out square. But then, it is
meant for a story, and it couldn't be better or more unlike other
stories told here. Nobody could have thought that out that hadn't a deep
mind."

The young lady looked critically at John, but she saw he really meant
what he said, and she was satisfied.

THIS STORY IS TOLD BY

THE OLD PROFESSOR

AND IS CALLED

MY TRANSLATOPHONE

IX

MY TRANSLATOPHONE

The Professor was very old, but he was well preserved--always spoken of
as "hale and hearty." He still held his position in his college, and
still took a good part in teaching mathematics, but he had an assistant
who did the heavy work. He had been principal of the school where the
Mistress of the House received her education, and she was much attached
to him, and he always spent som