and fell into
nothingness, and the children cried:

"'Stepmother, you have the fever!'

"And then:

"'Stepmother, what makes the strange light in the room?'

"That day the stepmother was too weak to rise from her bed, and the
children thought she must be going to die, for she did not scold as they
cleared the house and braided their baskets, and she did not frown at
them, but looked at them with wistful eyes.

"By fall of night she was as weary as if she had wept all the day, and
so she slept. But again she was awakened and knew not why. And again
she sat up in her bed and knew not why. And again, not knowing why, she
looked and saw a woman weaving cloth. All that had happened the night
before happened this night. Then, when the morning came, and the
children crept in shivering from their beds, she arose and dressed
herself, and from her strong box she took coins, and bade her husband go
with her to the town.

"So that night a web of cloth, woven by one of the best weavers in all
Iceland, was in the house; and on the beds of the children were blankets
of lamb's wool, soft to the touch and fair to the eye. After that the
children slept warm and were at peace; for now, when they told the sagas
their mother had taught them, or tried their part songs as they sat
together on their bench, the stepmother was silent. For she feared
to chide, lest she should wake at night, not knowing why, and see the
mother's wraith."

A GRAMMATICAL GHOST

THERE was only one possible objection to the drawing-room, and that was
the occasional presence of Miss Carew; and only one possible objection
to Miss Carew. And that was, that she was dead.

She had been dead twenty years, as a matter of fact and record, and to
the last of her life sacredly preserved the treasures and traditions of
her family, a family bound up--as it is quite unnecessary to explain to
any one in good society--with all that is most venerable and heroic in
the history of the Republic. Miss Carew never relaxed the
proverbial hospitality of her house, even when she remained its sole
representative. She continued to preside at her table with dignity and
state, and to set an example of excessive modesty and gentle decorum to
a generation of restless young women.

It is not likely that having lived a life of such irreproachable
gentility as this, Miss Carew would have the bad taste to die in any way
not pleasant to mention in fastidious society. She could be t