hidden in her arm.

He was not expecting it: to all seeming she stood there the
personification of the grief that is not to be comforted, oblivious
to all surroundings. Incautiously he took another step. In an
instant she had "landed" him over the head with a long narrow wooden
box containing, one supposes, pencils and pens. He must have been a
hard-headed youngster, the sound of the compact echoed through the
valley. I met her again on my way back.

"Hat much damaged?" I inquired.

"Oh, no," she answered, smiling; "besides, it was only an old hat.
I've got a better one for Sundays."

I often feel philosophical myself; generally over a good cigar after
a satisfactory dinner. At such times I open my Marcus Aurelius, my
pocket Epicurus, my translation of Plato's "Republic." At such times
I agree with them. Man troubles himself too much about the
unessential. Let us cultivate serenity. Nothing can happen to us
that we have not been constituted by Nature to sustain. That foolish
farm labourer, on his precarious wage of twelve shillings a week:
let him dwell rather on the mercies he enjoys. Is he not spared all
anxiety concerning safe investment of capital yielding four per
cent.? Is not the sunrise and the sunset for him also? Many of us
never see the sunrise. So many of our so-termed poorer brethen are
privileged rarely to miss that early morning festival. Let the
daemon within them rejoice. Why should he fret when the children cry
for bread? Is it not in the nature of things that the children of
the poor should cry for bread? The gods in their wisdom have