plenty of poets and romancers; we could manufacture suitable
associations and fit them to the premises. At first, it is true,
they might not fire the imagination; but after a few hundred years,
in being crooned by mother to infant and handed down by father to
son, they would mellow with age, as all legends do, and they would
end by being hallowed by rising generations. I do not say they
would be absolutely satisfactory from every standpoint, but I do
say that they would be better than nothing.

"However," I continued, "all this was last night, and I have had a
change of heart this morning. Just on the borderland between
sleeping and waking, I had a vision. I remembered that to-day
would be Monday the 1st of September; that all over our beloved
land schools would be opening and that your sister pedagogues would
be doing your work for you in your absence. Also I remembered that
I am the dishonourable but Honorary President of a Froebel Society
of four hundred members, that it meets to-morrow, and that I can't
afford to send them a cable."

"It is all true," said Salemina. "It might have been said more
briefly, but it is quite true."

"Now, my dear, I am only a painter with an occasional excursion
into educational fields, but you ought to be gathering stories of
knowledge to lay at the feet of the masculine members of your
School Board."

"I ought, indeed!" sighed Salemina.

"Then let us begin!" I urged. "I want to be good to-day and you