"Wish you'd just take this handkerchief and
brush it off," said the Professor; "I guess I've broke
my arm."

It was The Boy from Zeeny.



WHERE IS MARY ALICE SMITH?

"Where--is--Mary--Alice--Smith? Oh--
she--has--gone--home!" It was the thin
mysterious voice of little Mary Alice Smith herself
that so often queried and responded as above--
every word accented with a sweet and eery intonation,
and a very gaiety of solemn earnestness that
baffled the cunning skill of all childish imitators. A
slender wisp of a girl she was, not more than ten
years in appearance, though her age had been
given to us as fourteen. The spindle ankles that
she so airily flourished from the sparse concealment
of a worn and shadowy calico skirt seemed scarce
a fraction more in girth than the slim blue-veined
wrists she tossed among the loose and ragged tresses
of her yellow hair, as she danced around the room.
She was, from the first, an object of curious and
most refreshing interest to our family--to us children
in particular--an interest, though years and
years have interposed to shroud it in the dull dust
of forgetfulness, that still remains vivid and bright