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COMIN' THRO' THE RYE.

child's mind, and it were taught to follow after good and reject evil, not because it would be rewarded for the one and punished for the other, but because goodness and virtue were beautiful and to be worshipped, while vice and sin were ugly and hateful, and to be shunned for the sake of its own deformity, then would be laid the foundation for a race of men who would be neither free-thinkers nor Pharisees———"

"If you please, miss," says Simpkins, in a patient voice, that signifies he has made the announcement more than once to us, "luncheon is served!"



CHAPTER XIX.

"Rosalind.—Oh! how full of briars is the working-day world.
Celia.—They are but burrs, cousin, thrown upon us in holiday foolery.

We have never quarrelled before, Paul and I, never. We have had little disputes about this, that, and t'other; he has been jealous, I provoking, but we have never actually quarrelled till to-day. We are at it at this very moment, and oh! what dull, dull work I find it! We are not saying bitter things to each other shrilly and fast, with angry tears in our voices and treacherously soft hearts. (When one is having a good downright quarrel with a person one loves, does not the tongue wax the bitterer in proportion as the heart grows softer? Mine does.) We are in the sulky, dignified silent stage, each waiting for the other to speak, and each grimly determined not to be first. Paul is in one arm-chair, I am in another—we are yards apart; and on the hearthrug, sprawling on their backs, as though they had alighted in a hurry, lie two books. I shall not say what the quarrel began about. I was certainly very rude; but what business had he to take up a newspaper, and read it right before me, after I had said what I did? I lost my temper