Yours respectfully,

MELISSA SMITH.


The master sat pondering on this strange epistle till the moon lifted
its bright face above the distant hills, and illuminated the trail that
led to the schoolhouse, beaten quite hard with the coming and going
of little feet. Then, more satisfied in mind, he tore the missive into
fragments and scattered them along the road.

At sunrise the next morning he was picking his way through the palmlike
fern and thick underbrush of the pine forest, starting the hare from its
form, and awakening a querulous protest from a few dissipated crows, who
had evidently been making a night of it, and so came to the wooded ridge
where he had once found Mliss. There he found the prostrate pine and
tasseled branches, but the throne was vacant. As he drew nearer, what
might have been some frightened animal started through the crackling
limbs. It ran up the tossed arms of the fallen monarch and sheltered
itself in some friendly foliage. The master, reaching the old seat,
found the nest still warm; looking up in the intertwining branches, he
met the black eyes of the errant Mliss. They gazed at each other without
speaking. She was first to break the silence.

"What do you want?" she asked curtly.

The master had decided on a course of action. "I want some crab apples,"
he said humbly.

"Sha'n't have 'em! go away. Why don't you get 'em of Clytemnerestera?"