pack that evening was unusually lively. Every member was anxious to prove that he had never liked Freely, as he called himself. Faux was his name, was it? Fox would have been more suitable. The majority expressed a desire to see him hooted out of the town. Mr. Freely did not venture over his door-sill that day, for he knew Jacob would keep at his side, and there was every probability that they would have a train of juvenile followers. He sent to engage the Woolpack gig for an early hour the next morning; but this order was not kept religiously a secret by the landlord. Mr. Freely was informed that he could not have the gig till seven; and the Grimworth people were early risers. Perhaps they were more alert than usual on this particular morning; for when Jacob, with a bag of sweets in his hand, was induced to mount the gig with his brother David, the inhabitants of the market-place were looking out of their doors and windows, and at the turning of the street there was even a muster of apprentices and schoolboys, who shouted as they passed in what Jacob took to be a very merry and friendly way, nodding and grinning in return. "Huzzay, David Faux, how's your uncle?" was their morning's greeting. Like other pointed things, it was not altogether impromptu. Even this public derision was not so crushing to David as the horrible thought, that though he might succeed now in getting Jacob home again, there would never be any security against his coming back, like a wasp to the honey-pot. As long as David lived at Grimworth, Jacob's return would be hanging over him. But could he go on living at Grimworth — an object of ridicule, discarded by the Palfreys, after having reveled in the consciousness that he was an envied and prosperous confectioner? David liked to be envied; he minded. less about being loved. His doubts on this point were soon settled. The mind of Grimworth became obstinately set against him and his viands, and the new school being finished, the eating-room was closed. If there had been no other reason, sympathy with the Palfreys, that respectable family who had lived in the parish time out of mind, would have determined all well-to-do people to decline Freely's goods. Besides, he had absconded with his mother's guineas: who knew what else he had done, in Jamaica or else where, before he came to Grimworth, worming himself into families under false pretenses? Females shuddered. Dire suspicions gathered round him: his green eyes, his bow-legs, had a criminal aspect. The rector disliked the sight of a man who had imposed upon him; and all boys who could not afford to purchase hooted "David Faux" as they passed his shop. Certainly no man now would pay anything for the "good-will” of Mr. Freely's business, and he would be obliged to quit it without a peculium so desirable towards defraying the expense of moving. In a few months the shop in the market-place was again to let, and Mr. David Faux, alias Edward Freely, had gone nobody at Grimworth knew whither. In this way the demoralization of Grimworth women was checked. Young Mrs. Steene renewed her efforts to make light mince-pies, and having at last made a batch so excellent that Mr. Steene looked at her with complacency as he ate them, and said they were the best he had ever eaten in his life, she thought less of bulbuls and renegades ever after. The secrets of the finer cookery were revived in the breasts of matronly housewives, and daughters were again anxious to be initiated in them. You will further, I hope, be glad to hear that some purchases of drapery made by pretty Penny, in preparation for her marriage with Mr. Freely, came in quite as well for her wedding with young Towers as if they had been made expressly for the latter occasion. For Penny's complexion had not altered, and blue always became it best. Here ends the story of Mr. David Faux, confectioner, and his brother Jacob. And we see in it, I think, an admirable instance of the unexpected forms in which the great Nemesis hides herself. RALPH WALDO EMERSON RALPH WALDO EMERSON. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, May 25, 1803; died at Concord, Massachusetts, April 27, 1882. Author of “Nature," "The Conservative," "The American Scholar," "The Transcendentalist," "Man the Reformer," "History," "Self-reliance," "Compensation," "Circles," "The Over-Soul," "The Poet," "Experience," "Art," "Representative Men," "Works and Days," "The Conduct of Life,” “English Traits," "Society and Solitude," "Poems." Of all American writers, Emerson is the most quoted and the most quotable. Emerson was a most benignant spirit, a teacher of good cheer, of courtesy, of loyalty, of heroism, of self-reliance, and the abiding qualities of whatever is sweet and noble in human life. His phraseology is commonly transparent, and he had a wonderful power of crystallizing thought in short sentences. At first, and during many years, the sale of his books did not pay for their printing, but in recent years more than two million copies of his works have been sold. His influence on the upbuilding of character and the cherishing of lofty ideals in every land in which his writings have been read is incalculable. (The following selections are used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, the publishers.) GOOD-BY GOOD-BY, proud world! I'm going home: Long I've been tossed like the driven foam; Good-by to Flattery's fawning face; I am going to my own hearthstone, And vulgar feet have never trod A spot that is sacred to thought and God. O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, (From "MONADNOC") COMPLEMENT of human kind, O barren mound, thy plenties fill! Thou art silent and sedate. To myriad kinds and times one sense Thou, in our astronomy An opaquer star, |