watching the young moon and smoking the last pipe before bed-time, a
dozen of these gay balloons rose from the waterside and drifted on
the faint north wind, seaward, past my window. Another dozen
followed, and another, until from one point and another of the dark
shore a hundred balloons soared over the water, challenging the
stars.



II.--THE SIMPLE SHEPHERD.


Troy Town,
29 January, 1895.

"And then, as he set the bowl of goat's milk on the board, that
simple Tyrolean turned to me with a magnificent sweep of the hand,
and exclaimed--"

Ah, my dear Prince, if you could only tell me what he exclaimed, you
would restore a whole parish to its natural slumbers. For indeed he
is playing the deuce with our nights, here in Troy, that guileless
Tyrolean.

How trivial are the immediate causes of great events! On New Year's
Day our excellent Vicar, having bought himself a Whitaker's Almanack
for 1895, presented his last year's copy to the Working Men's Reading
Room. In itself you would have thought this action of the Vicar's
signified no more than a generous desire to keep his parishioners
abreast of the times. In effect it inaugurated the Great Temperance