Nan had already found out. She felt quite appeased as she peered in at the goodly black thing. It really must have cost much more than forty cents. At last James would be satisfied. She smiled up at her uncle.

"Oh, thank you, so much! said politely.

It's just what I wanted," she

James was already at the tree when she toiled out through the deep meadow grass with the heavy box. He was sitting on the ground, sullenly whittling a stick. He looked up as Nan came upon him with her burden.

"What you got? Did your uncle bring you a doll ?" he asked patronizingly, eyeing the box, which would have fitted no possible doll of ordinary dimensions. The uncles with whom James had dealings lacked discrimination in their choice of gifts. His Uncle Frederick had given him a box of colored blocks only the Christmas before. Anyone ought to have more sense than to give baby playthings like that to a fellow twelve years old.

"No, of course it isn't a doll. It's - what do you think?" Nan was not usually irritating. She was merely administering a stimulant to the lazy figure on the ground. But James looked disgusted. He did not care for guessing. He wished to come to the point. Nan, perceiving this, calmly announced, "It's an iron stove."

Nan opened the box once more, and the housekeepers rapturously explored the fascinating black stove, its ovens and hinged doors and the nice place to make a fire in.

"Well, isn't a stove a pretty good thing to have?" asked James, in an I-told-you-so tone, as they broke many small twigs in preparation for a meal.

Nan smiled subtly.

"Now we can buy the pink and blue cloth," she said.

CHARLOTTE GOLDSMITH CHASE.

SKETCHES

AN EXPLANATION

I am not dying of a broken heart,

Nor has my tender youth received a blight,
I have received no wound from Cupid's dart,
Nor have my pet ambitions met with slight.
My health is good, my nerves are very strong,
I am no martyr to some lofty aim,

I veil no grief, nor suffer any wrong.
And yet because I understand the same
And try to put my sympathies in rhyme,
And soar in realms of fancy often time
And shed a dream-tear in a metred line,
I'm deemed a maiden blighted in her prime.
But oh! my youthful critic, do not think
My whole life lies revealed in blots of ink!
ALICE VENELIA HATCH.

The girl with the handsome eyes and the tailor-made gown tossed aside the new magazine impatiently.

"The only reason" she remarked,

A Modern Short Story "why I cannot write short stories, and be considered a genius, is because I flatter myself I have a trifle too much common sense." The girl bending over the chafing-dish looked puzzled. "Were it not" she said, "for the fact that you have gained the reputation of being a genius in other ways, I should put that down as a clear case of sour grapes, as it is

"As it is, I understand human nature too well to follow rules, which falsify real life and human nature to such an extent that one would no more expect to meet the hero or heroine of the modern short story than he would expect to meet Alice and the White Rabbit walking about the campus."

"They may have been there last night. I found a white glove in front of the Students' Building this morning," observed her room-mate slowly.

"Which was dropped by some one coming from the play last night. But really, Irene, I wonder that you don't understand my feelings."

"Perhaps the reason is that I write short stories myself." "Oh, yes, semi-annually, but that isn't a proof of budding genius, merely that you take English 13 and have to contribute your share of the rubbish which a long-suffering teacher has to read. Really, Irene, you can't imagine how distressing it is to a person who has studied human nature to have it degraded as it is daily by youthful would-be writers. I have always made a study of character myself, and it sometimes seems as if I couldn't stand the trash with which the best magazines are filled."

"Why do you read the stories, honey,-there are still plenty of treatises on the weighty political and scientific questions of the day. Read those, my dear, for solid food, and satisfy your artistic appetite with Browning, and then your delicate sensibilities will not suffer."

"One has to keep up with the literature of the day, and so degraded has the public taste become that the short story is about all the modern literature we have. The best magazines are publishing more and more numbers devoted entirely to stories and soon they will be all stories. I don't see what we are coming to."

"It is a problem. Do you like your bouillon salt, dear?"

"Anyway, it doesn't matter. Now just look at this story I have been reading. The man does not care for the girl and she goes about for the rest of her life with a 'dark shadow in her fathomless eyes, and a bewildering smile on her lips'-and no one dreams of her blighted life. Now imagine any sane person writing such nonsense. What an impression it would give a foreigner of our modern American girl. Girls' lives are not blighted, nor their hearts broken in these days. Love is not the only end in their lives and one, two or three men, whom perhaps they might have married pass out of their lives leaving the heart whole as ever. The romance, which the majority of people find it so pleasant to read about, went out of fashion with the days of chivalry."

The other girl passed a cup of steaming bouillon to her roommate and helped herself before replying. Then-" Perhaps you are right," she said slowly, "but I know of one true story,

which of course may only be the exception which proves the rule, but―"

"If you are sure it is true, tell it to me. It will be refreshing after all the trash I have been reading this afternoon."

“It will be very like it, I'm afraid; after all, it is only a modern short story-but it's true."

"How do you know it's true?"

"Where are the crackers ?" demanded the other girl from the depths of the closet.

"In the third drawer of the chiffonier under the gloves. I put them there for safe keeping. Now are you going to tell me the story? We usually gossip so much over our Sunday night supper that it will be an agreeable change."

"For you, perhaps. Personally I like to gossip-with you. Do you know, I should think room-mates would get talked out, and yet they never seem to, and always appear to enjoy each other's company better than anyone's else."

"Again, Irene, you are taking a narrow view of things. We were both unusually fortunate, and therefore are unqualified to give an unbiased opinion upon room-mates in general.”

"Thank you, dearest. Really, your capacity for throwing back-handed compliments at yourself increases every day. I imagine-"

"Don't imagine, Irene, it's wearing to the brain. Besides, you should keep all your flights of imagination for 13, and not use them up on ordinary occasions."

"One would think you thought the supply limited."

"I didn't say that, but go on with the story. Did the heroine tell it to you herself?"

"No, she never told me, but I know the facts of her life and I know the girl better than she knows herself. She did not have to tell me."

"Were this all a story, you would be telling me about yourself, thinking I would never guess, and you would pause every little while with a 'queer look' in your eyes, and you would laugh a strained, unnatural laugh', which is the exceedingly subtle hint, which the exceedingly original author always drops in order to give the reader a glimpse into his exceedingly original plot."

"Well, this isn't a story. The girl had been brought up with the boy; they had played and skated and danced and walked

together ever since the girl could remember. She did not realize that she was in love with him, but she had never let herself think what life would be without the boy, and after he went to college she was lonely. She began to grow up then, I think, and to understand herself. She was so proud of him when he carried off all the honors freshman year, and all the time the feeling was growing that the honors were hers, too, and that he belonged to her."

Irene paused here to refill the cups. cracker thoughtfully, but did not speak.

The other nibbled a

"It was the beginning of his junior year at college that he first wrote of his chum's sister, and that summer before his senior year he talked of her all the time. The girl entered college herself in the fall, and she told the boy she was too busy to correspond. His class day she met the other girl, and she was bridesmaid the following winter. That is all, only the girl still cares. She will never care for anyone else as she cared for

the boy.".

For an instant two pairs of eyes met each other a little defiantly, then Irene got up.

"Turn-about is fair play," she said. "I got supper, and told you a story besides, so you may clear up while I go to church. with Polly."

The other rose slowly and put on a big apron over the faultless tailor gown.

"Your supper was very good," she said, "but I'm sorry I can't say as much for the story. It not only was lacking in originality, but it was positively hackneyed. Those idyllic love affairs which have their origin in the pinafore days are quite the fashion now. You could safely call it true, for it might have happened to a dozen girls."

"I'm glad to hear you admit it. You said in the beginning that the modern girl never cared, and that hearts had gone out of fashion, and they haven't, you know that, dear."

"Then you were only trying to prove to me a general theorem in a general way, and had no special case in mind." There was almost a pleading note in the girl's clear voice, and the other kissed her hastily.

"May be not, perhaps it was only a flight of my imagination, which I shall write up later for 13. Good-bye, honey."

She went out and closed the door, but opened it again almost immediately.