is very difficult for a healthy person to be genuinely unclean; and that ideally, in the surgeon's eyes, we are all, gentleman and tramp, so unclean that there is little to choose between us, and every one of us requires a comprehensive scrubbing in an antiseptic tub. But just as the habit of aiding nature by eating pre-digested food is bad, so too rigid a habit, to great a need, of cleanliness is a positive disadvantage in the struggle for existence. Harry Stidston says fleas are lovable little creatures. I have had to learn to put up with one or two, sometimes. The Albany Review. Tommy makes his mother undress him in the middle of dinner to find one. In other words, Harry Stidston can do his work and live under conditions which would put me to flight, and I have a like advantage over Tommy. Again, Tony can do with an occasional bath and can eat his food with fishy hands, while I am a worm and no man without my daily bath, or at least a wash-over, and, except at sea, turn against the best of food if I can smell fish on my fingers. The advantage is Tony's. It is good to be clean, but it is better to be able to be dirty. (To be continued.) Stephen Reynolds. HARDY-ON-THE-HILL. CHAPTER IV. BY M. E. FRANCIS (Mrs. Francis Blundell.) It was yet early in the afternoon when Kitty and Bess made their way up the hill to Hardy's. Rebecca had invited them to come early so that she might conduct them over the premises before tea, according to a desire expressed by Bess on the previous day. Hardy's was an old house, though not so old as the Little Farm; still its brick walls had attained that mellow tint which can only be conferred by time; the tiled roof, if it had not that delicious irregularity of outline which characterized its smaller neighbor, was, nevertheless, clothed by a variety of lichens; the windows were mullioned and the panes leaded. The doorway was arched almost like that of a church, and the door itself of oak and studded with nails. Mrs. Hardy herself received them in the hall, which was narrow and passage-like, and conducted them into the living room--a big comfortable chamber, with panelled walls painted a cheerful buff, and great beams supporting the ceiling, and whitewashed like it. Mrs. Hardy wore her best black silk, and a black cap which rather altered the expression of her face, being spiky in texture and helmet-like in shape, and almost covering her smooth hair. Her ruddy face was shining metaphorically with hospitable good humor, and literally from a recent and plentiful application of soap. In greeting the girls she had looked past them expectantly. "The gentleman didn't come," she remarked. "I'd 'low I did ought to have axed him myself-or Stephen-Stephen should ha' wrote him a bit of a note." "Father's so busy, you see," returned Kitty, "he never goes out to tea." "And he never takes any either," put in Bess hastily. "We carry in a cup to him sometimes, but he almost always never drinks it." If Bess's grammar was slightly defective, there was no mistaking her anxiety to avoid giving offence. Mrs. Hardy's brow cleared, and she extended a hand to each of her young visitors with a broad smile. "Well, I be pure glad as you were able to come anyhow. Well, now, would you like to throw a look round before we sit down to our tea? Stephen won't be in till four-we put tea at that hour because we'm fayshionable to-day," said Mrs. Hardy, wagging her head with a jolly laugh. "We mostly has our tea at six, you know, but to-day we'm fayshionable. Well, this 'ere's the parlor what we do always use. There's another one in there, but we do never sit in it. It bain't not to say properly furnished either. When Stephen gets married, I do tell en he can furnish the best parlor." She threw open the door as she spoke, disclosing a long light room with a round table of monstrous dimensions in the centre, and containing hardly anything else in the way of furniture. Nevertheless Bess walked to one of the windows with an air of satisfaction. "It might be made a perfectly delightful room," she said. "It's so nice to be able to look out on the orchardonly the orchard would be prettier if there were no pigs in it." "Now that's where you make a mistake, missy," returned Mrs. Hardy. "Pigs is a pleasant sight, because, as a general rule, where there's pigs there's money. 'Tis pigs what makes a dairy valuable, and there's a deal o' knowledge required to make a pig pay, as it did ought to pay." Bess turned away from the window and once more surveyed the room. "If these walls were painted white," she said, "with just a little frieze of roses and pale blue curtains-short curtains-it would be simply lovely." "Oh no, Bess," cried Kitty with animation, "not blue curtains. This room ought to be all white and green, with those green boughs waving just outside 2146 LIVING AGE. VOL. XLI. window-apple-green curtains, the "What's a note of green?" inquired Stephen, suddenly appearing at the door. Kitty hesitated for a moment, not being quite certain as to the manner in which she should greet their farmer landlord; but Bess at once stepped forward, graciously extending her small hand. "Don't you think it very kind of us to plan the decoration of your room?" she inquired, with a saucy smile and her head at its most engaging angle. "You can't think how pretty it would be if you would follow our advice." "The advice wouldn't be very easy to follow," he returned. "You don't seem quite agreed on some points." "Take my advice then!" cried Bess. "Now look here, Mr. Hardy, you mustn't have a carpet all over roses as big as cabbages-a cabbage rose is one thing and a rose cabbage anotherit must be all one plain color-" "A note of color?" Stephen queried, with his eyes twinkling. "I shall have to begin your artistic education at the very beginning, I see," said Bess; "you don't even understand the terms. I'll explain what I mean while we go on," she added, as Mrs. Hardy led the way out of the room. Kitty followed a little puzzled and, it must be owned, slightly uncomfortable. She herself had every wish to treat Farmer Hardy with due civility, and even deference, as master of the house and landlord to themselves, but she was not prepared to find herself on intimate and even familiar terms with him. Bess seemed absolutely to forget that there was disparity of station that should not be quite overlooked; indeed, her mode of greeting the young yeoman, and the tone of the conversation, in which she was now taking an animated part, seemed to sweep away all barriers. Stephen himself responded to her sallies with placid good humor, laughing sometimes quietly to himself; it was evident that Bess amused him. They Meanwhile Mrs. Hardy conducted the little party upstairs and down. saw the bedrooms, immaculately neat but a trifle gloomy, a huge four-poster in each absorbing much of the available space; they visited the dairy-a very picture of a dairy-with its white walls and its stone shelves and rows of shining "leads." Bess positively gloated over the pans of cream, and all at once drew her little finger round the edge of one and licked it. It would have been a highly reprehensible action in one less childish and less pretty, but as it was Stephen and his stepmother laughed. "If you like cream, you shall have a-plenty," cried Mrs. Hardy, taking up a skimmer. "You must hold it quite, quite steady," cried Bess, "because the skimmer is so big and my mouth so littleat least, rather little." She sipped very cautiously, her green eyes roving the while from one to the other of her hosts; when she had finished her cream she licked her lips like a little cat. "Will you have some, Missy?" inquired Mrs. Hardy, turning to Kitty. As the latter refused, very civilly but with a certain haste, Rebecca remarked laughing-"You're the proud one, I see." "Oh, indeed, indeed I'm not," cried Kitty, growing pink with distress. "I --I don't care for cream, really." "Well, please yourself and you'll please me," replied Rebecca. "I don't mean nothing to hurt ye, my dear. I do only call ye the proud one because you do seem to take less interest like than your sister." "Oh, I take a great deal of interest 'n everything," returned Kitty quickly. "I know I seem dreadfully dull and stupid, but I-you lead such useful lives and I do so little-I feel somehow disheartened." She scarcely knew how she worded her apology in her anxiety to refute Rebecca's accusation-if accusation it could be called that was so good-humoredly made. She spoke indeed out of the fulness of her heart, for ever since her interview with her father she had been conscious of a humiliating dissatisfaction with herself and her capabilities, and a doubt of her power of carrying out the resolutions which she had so valiantly made. Added to this was her discomfort at Bess's unexpected attitude, and her fear of the complications which might possibly ensue. To this last point she could not, of course, allude, but she spoke the truth when she owned to being disheartened. "No need to be cast down, love," cried Rebecca, quite mollified. "There, I be sure you be young enough to learn. Lard, when I were your age I didn't know much more, I'd 'low, though of course I was brought up different. I'll be real glad to put ye in the way o' things, whenever you do want tellin'." The tour of inspection was concluded by a visit to a big, cheerful room aglow with firelight, and decorated with a wonderful array of cooking utensils, some of which, dating as they did from a hundred years back, were more for show than use. Stephen next proposed to conduct the visitors out-of-doors, that he might introduce them to the live stock and garden. Rebecca did not, however, fall in cordially with the suggestion. "I've got my dress on, d'ye see, and my house shoes," she said hesitatingly. "Maybe you'll excuse me, my dears; Stephen will be glad to show you all what's to be seen." "I think we had better stay with you," returned Kitty. "It was you Bess turned her head sentimentally on one side, with a gentle and inarticulate murmur, by which she intended to convey her willingness to abide with Rebecca had not the paramount duty of inspecting the live stock in Stephen's company called her elsewhere. "Please yourself, my dear," said Rebecca. "You can go out wi' Stephen while your sister and me bides indoor. Come along, love." She smiled broadly on Kitty, having been entirely won by her proposal and sweet gentle ways; while Kitty hesitated, Bess, with great alacrity, announced that she should like to see the cows first. She and Stephen were absent some time, so long, indeed, that the lamp was lighted and the curtains drawn when they returned. Bess came running in with her cheeks glowing and her eyes bright. "It has been delightful," she announced. "You can't think how delightful it was, Kitty. You should be ashamed of yourself to prefer sitting curled up here, like an old cat before the fire." "Miss Leslie wouldn't have a chair," said Rebecca, smiling down at the girl with an expression which betokened that their intimacy had made strides during Bess's absence. Bess dropped down beside her sister on the rug, tossing off her hat and laughing. The firelight made a very nimbus of her hair, and brought little ruddy sparkles into her eyes. "We've had such a lovely walk," said Bess. "We saw the garden and the orchard-and oh, Kitty, we saw the Lovers' Walk. Up there in the wood, you know, the little copse on the top of the hill-the Lovers' Walk goes straight through it; and there is a stile for the lovers to lean on, and a dear old battered bench where they can sit and rest." Kitty got up from the rug. "Did you see the cows?" she inquired in a sternly matter-of-fact tone. "The cows," echoed Bess vaguely as she too scrambled to her feet. She stood for a moment or two blinking, as if she had some difficulty in bringing her thoughts back to concrete matters, then suddenly seemed to wake up. "Of course we say the cows-it was just milking-time. I wouldn't stay though, because I am going to see them in the early, early morning by lanternlight, and I didn't want to spoil the effect of my first impression. Mr. Hardy thinks it quite natural I should want to see them in the early morning," she added somewhat defiantly, "he wasn't in the least shocked. says his men are not at all rough, and, besides, he will be there himself." He She threw a sidelong glance at her sister as she made this last announcement. "What do you think, Mrs. Hardy?" said Kitty, turning doubtfully to her hostess. "Bess wants to get up before daylight to see your cows being milked. Do you think it would do?" "Well, it will be very early for her to get up," said Mrs. Hardy. No other aspect of the affair seemed to strike her. "I thought it might be-inconvenient," faltered Kitty. "I thought we might be in the way." "Not in the least, my dear," responded Mrs. Hardy genially. "If your sister has a fancy for seein' the milkin' by lamplight for once, I'm sure she's welcome to do it, but I d' 'low she'll not feel so ready for it to-morrow mornin'. I don't get up much before six myself-except on churning days --and Stephen don't as a rule." "Mr. Hardy says he'll be up to-morrow," repeated Bess, "and that'll be nice, because he can show us everything. But you needn't get up if you don't like, Kitty. I shall, because he mightn't be there another morning, so It's a chance." She threw back her head with a little jerk of the chin that was meant for Kitty, and she smiled innocently at Stephen as she passed him. "I'll be there," said Stephen, and he looked, not at her, but at Kitty. The table was spread with a substantial meal. The girls were more or less prepared for the cold ham and the poached eggs, but they were rather surprised to find a brace of partridge smoking on the board, flanked by the inevitable bread sauce. "Our best is rough enough," put in Stephen's voice. "You must take us as you find us, Miss Leslie, and put up with us when we make mistakes." The observation appeared to be addressed to Bess, but again he looked at Kitty. Oddly enough he did not resent the younger sister's babyish impertinence so much as the elder's aloofness. This was the proud one, as the stepmother had said. She glanced at him in return, unconsciously drawing herself up a little, for his manner had been abrupt and his voice had a harsh ring. There was surprise, indignation, and withal a kind of pleading in her eyes, but Stephen was not prone to analyze niceties of ex Bess threw an admiring glance at pression, and, indeed, before he had them as she sat down. "How nice," she said. "I've never had partridge for tea before, but then, of course, we are not well off." Stephen, who was handing Kitty's cup, was surprised to see her blush, and to detect a look of warning directed at her sister. Following her gaze he observed that, though Bess's face was wreathed with a most engaging and guileless smile, the sparkle in her eyes which he had thought to be the effect of firelight was more noticeable than ever; it was the very demon of mischief. "Well, ye see," remarked the unconscious Mrs. Hardy, "us don't often have young ladies like you to tea, and so we are anxious to do our best for them." The Times. had time to do more than note their mere beauty, the full lids veiled them again and the dark lashes seemed to sweep the girl's cheek. Stephen laughed to himself as he set about carving the birds. "What's amusin' ye, my dear?" inquired Rebecca, laughing, too, for sympathy, as was invariably her way, long before she was acquainted with any joke. "Well, I'm just laughing out," said Stephen, "because I know these two young ladies are laughing in their hearts." "Oh, how wicked you are!" cried Bess, with twinkling eyes and a solemn button of a mouth. "I never felt less like laughing in my life," said Kitty. (To be continued.) THE EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS. In the annals of the Catholic Church in this country, the Eucharistic Congress will take rank as an event of historic importance. In the memory of those who took part in it, it will live as the wonderful week in which they have gazed upon scenes such as have never been witnessed by their fathers even from the days of St. Augustine. For the first time in history seven Car |