DICKENS' OLD HOME. T Is usual, I believe," he said, "be ll fore dissolving partnership to take accounts. Let us see what each brought into the firm." "You begin," she answered. "I brought fair ability, energy, ambi tion, a decent position, means of com fortable life and an unblemished name. Everyone said I wasn't 'a bad sort,' and more than all, I brought deep, true, pas sionate love." Said the woman: "I brought beau ty" her statement was splendidly true "youth, physical purity to which you do not lay elalm." He bowed. "Per haps little else, for it was generous of you to marry the daughter of an undis charged bankrupt." "What have we got out of our mar riage V" continued the husband. "Let me speak. Of course the honeymoon was a failure. Poets and novelists" he spoke bitterly "tell wicked false hoods about honeymoons. They are never wholly happy, unless, perhaps, when It's the wife's second honeymoon. After that, three months of exquisite, almost mad joy, then four months of happiness, followed by three of con tentment, ending in a year of gradually increasing misery." "Of course the honeymoon was a- fail ure," she answered. "The next three months were happy, the following four not bad, the subsequent three indiffer ent, and the year was intolerable. You . got more out of the business than I, for you put more in. Alas, I had not the mad love's capital, and yet " "And yet," interrupted the man, mis understanding, "you have wasted that capital, and the beautiful mad love has gone, and I, who once would have died for you more than that, would have lived disgracefully for you am content to dissolve partnership, willing that we should part as friends." "Content? William?" she asked. "Tell me, what do you regret most?" "I regret my bankruptcy," he said. "I began our partnership with what 1 thought a splendid, inexhaustible fund of love. I look back to moments of hap piness beyond description, and now I am Insolvent In love. After all, I be lieve," he continued, with a pleasant, manly smile, "I believe that It is 'bet ter to have loved and lost,' even If It be the love and not the sweetheart that one has lost. Do you regret nothing? What clings to your mind?" She shook her head. "Come, you should tell me. There, on the table near you is the deed of disso lution, the separation deed it hasn't even been engrossed on parchment, but Is printed on paper. At the end are two seals. We execute the dissolution deed by putting our fingers on the seals. The partnership was executed with our lips. In a quarter of an hour, Mr. Haw kins, the lawyer, will be here to witness the execution. Tell me." She shook her head again her splen did head, regular in feature, delightful In complexion, crowned with gorgeous auburn hair, illumined by deep, large, violet eyes. "You regret nothing?" With a sigh she answered : "I regret that you have cast your pearls before me. I regret that I have misprized and lost your love; that I gave you little in return. I regret that my very in ability to return your love truly has ir ritated me by making me feel your debtor; that feeling of Irritation has made you miserable and me miserable, too." . "I did not use the word regret quite In that sense," he answered. "I meant Is there nothing you look back to of happinesss that yet lives In your mem ory?" She put down the fan that had flut tered in her tender hands, and, with half a smile, half a blush, she an swered, "There was one thing, one moment, that I regret." He rose and walked up and down the daintily furnished room, everything in which was a note In a dead love song. "A year ago to-day we were at Sta ples, you recollect?" "It was for economy I went because It was ridiculously cheap and very pretty and I hated Boulogne." "I remember how we wandered about, how, alas, we quarreled In the pine woods, or, to be exact, I quarreled and you suffered, and the splendid sea shore, where I said bitter things, be cause my friends were at Trouville and I at the little quiet Paris Plage, and you were sad and silent" "My dear," he Interrupted, "I was greatly to blame." "Hush! You must not Interrupt. Then one day we took a boat a clumsy boat and sailed out, despite the warn ings of the fishermen. I- didn't care you didn't care what happened. We had quarreled, or, rather, I, at lunch, said harsh things." "My dear," he interrupted, "there were faults on both sides. They ren dered life intolerable and love impossi ble, but " "Hush. We rowed out. You had the sculls and I steered at least I lay in e stern and spashed the waves with toy hands the bands you used to kiss so often." She paused to look at the hands firm, plump and white and decked with rings of curious workmanship. He, too, looked at them and sighed. She sighed! "But out we went Then the skies became darker, the water darkened, too, and grew rough and you tried to turn. We were far out from shore. You must have been looking at me in stead of the land, or you would have seen that we were floating fast In a current. Oh, you looked splendid! Your thin Jersey showed the lines of your strong, supple body, the muscles of your arms and chest rose superbly, and your manly face, flushed and firm, fascinated me." The man smiled, half scornfully. "You pulled hard, and I don't think I was frightened. I didn't care what happened. Then the rotten oar cracked, and you bound It round with our hand kerchiefs, but it still was weak, so you tore off a long strip of my petticoat to bind Jt with, and we drifted, drifted out When at last you tried again it napped, and the blade fell into the geo. Then you came to me, to the item, and took the tiller from my hands. You put your arm around- my waist and said: 'Don't be afraid, dear wife!' I knew we were drifting out to open sea, to storm and death, and was aware that you knew it. 'Don't be af.a.d, little wife,' you said", and suddenly you put your arm around my neck.'-' "I remember." "Yes, I know: Let me go on. You brought my face to yours and laid your Hps on mine. Oh, that kiss that kiss! It still stings on my lips. In it I felt the depth of your love. I felt that I loved you, felt that we were man and wife, and the only beings alive on land or sea. That kiss is what I regret that kiss, the one moment of rapture in my life." She paused. "I remember." "Why did that foolish steamer save us? I could have died there, bapty in your arms--quite happy." "Quite happy?" "Yes, quite. To think that we q aar reled within a w-eek at least I did and things went worse than ever al ter ward! What are we women made of? The old song is wrong, we are made of gall and wormwood and marble. To think that we are here, and that paper lies there! You've acted handsomely, allowing me more than half your in come and letting me keep the flat." "Do you think I could live in It after you had gone?" he answered, with a break in his voice. "There's nothing in It that does not speak of you. It's a graveyard of memories." She looked at him over the fan and saw tears in his eyes. Then she rose and walked across the room. "Herbert," she said, in a timid voice, "it is 4 o'clock. He'll be here In five minutes to see the deed executed." The man bowed his head and hid his face in his hands. She took out her handkerchief, a ri diculous bit of lace and lawn, and touched her eyes. "Herbert, to-morrow is just one year after that day. The night train starts at 8 o'clock. If we went to Etaples we might find might find that kiss again." They both took hold of the deed and tore it into two pieces. "It is a new way," he observed, "of executing deeds of separation." Prom After Dinner. Hazing Fifty Years Ago. At the present time, when so much of public attention Is being directed to hazing at college and In government academies, the following extract from a letter written over half a century ago will be of interest. The writer was at that time a freshman of Yale, but was not at the college when inditing the epistle. He says: "I had a letter from - the other day they are having great times at Yale plaguing the fresh, etc. That business is carried on to a great extent here. Many of the poor devils have been ducked under the windows a dozen times, etc., etc. The greatest sport is to break into their rooms at midnight (a whole party of sophs at a time), make the scart fellow get up, mount the table in his shirt sleeves, answer questions in geography, arithmetic, Latin grammar, etc. (the simplest pos sible, so as to be suited to a freshman's comprehension), read a little Greek and then, what,is the greatest trial, de claim. If he refuses to comply he re ceives a shower from his water pail until he submits. If he answers well he Is highly complimented and flatter ed and politely bid good-night" Not Second Sight! In happenings that savor of the su pernatural, there Is often less rather than more than Is "dreamt of in our philosophy." In the English county of Wiltshire there lived a woman whose deceased husband had been a pig-dealer. After his death it was her habit to remark to chance visitors, without looking out the window: "That's a nice lot of young pigs those." ' "Where?" the person present was sure to ask. "Comin' down the road," was the in variable reply. "They're in a cart, and what's more, there's a fine fat zow among 'em." And it would not be long before a cart would appear, and in it a litter of pigs, and among them the sow which the woman had perceived at such a dis tance up the road. One day a visitor who saw in this exhibition of second sight, exclaimed: "How do you do it? It is simply won derful!" " 'Tain't no miracle," was the mod est reply. "I've just got my ear trained to pigs that's all." Hamlet's Grave. Everywhere the vandals are; but, on the whole, savs Jacob A Rita in tha Century, I rather think that Elsinore has turned the tables on them. Hamlet being dead, there had to be a Hamlet's grave, of course. The English tourists demanded It, and In due course of time were appeared a mound on the bluff, marked with a nlain erranite shaft that bore the name of the melancholy Dane. ine reiic-nunters cnipped it to pieces in one brief season. The hotel-keenera provided another, and It went the same way. wnen last i stood at Hamlet's grave I beheld It a mlehtv hear, ac stones and slag, several cart-loads. My iriena, one or tne solid citizens of the town, nodded knowingly at my look of amazement. "We caught up with them at last," he said. "We just have enough carted out from the glass-works every year to fill up the holes they made the sea son before; then let them go ahead. Want to go and look at Ophelia's spring?" When a woman goes away to visit for a long period, and comes home in a few days to "surprise" her husband, people wonder if she really got homesick, or wanted to catch him at something. . If yon want to abuse somebody, abuse a mall carrier. The government doaa not allow them to talk back. 2b KmLmm'r Ajmireru NOT many years ago wise men said that grain could never be grown to any extent in the Argentine Republic. The country was then import ing millions of dollars' worth of wheat every, year, and the farmers who were pasturing stock on what are now the principal wheat fields were eating flour shipped from the United States and Chili. To-day the Argentine has to a large extent the wheat trade of South America, and is shipping wheat to Eu rope. It plants millions of acres every year and it produces from thirty to eighty million bushels a season according to the weather and to the invasions of ''e lo custs. When the Argentine has a good crop the prices of wheat in the European markets are affected and our farmers often get less for their wheat in conse quence. In the past year or so flour mills have been springing np and the Ar gentine has now more than 500 flour mills, many of which use machinery im ported from the United States. The grain-producing area of the Argentine in creases every year. In the United States the average yield of wheat per acre, taking the whole coun try, is from twelve to thirteen bushels. That of the Argentine is not over ten. Vn England, where the soil is more care fully studied and cared for, the average is twenty-nine bushels per acre, in Hol land twenty-five bushels and in France eighteen. The most f the wheat of the Argentine is raised: by, Italian immi grants, many of whom" farm the land on shares. They do their'work in the rough est and most slovenly way. Much of the wheat is sowed on the ground as it is first plowed, the grain being dropped among the clods. Other farmers drag brush over the field-and some of the bet ter farmers use the harrow. The plow ing is done with bullocks, who drag the plows through the furrows by means of a yoke attached to their horns. The only Idea of the man seems to be ttf get the wheat into the ground and then sit down and wait for the crop. The farmers do not seem to care for anything but their wheat crop. Most of them have no gar dens. They run their accounts at the nearest grocery and make annual settle ments when they sell their wheat Most AMERICAN CHANCES IN ENGLAND Many Millions There Awaiting; Immi grants of the Right Kind. American immigration to Great Brit ain sounds strange, yet according to Alfred C. Harmsworth it is much need ed and will be equally beneficial to both people. Mr. Harmsworth should be an intel ligent authority. He is the proprietor of 29 publications In England, including four dally papers, one of which, the C' "HW01ITH. Lodon Da!,y MaU has the largest circulation in the world 1,250,000 copies. Speaking of American immigrants to England Mr. Harmsworth says: "You ask why the British, empire, with its population of 388!000,000, needs immi grants, and I answer that we don't want them in the bulk, as you do, but that we obviously offer unique oppor tunities to certain special skilled brain workers. Take Mr. Yerkes, for exam ples He will make more money in a day In transporting the densely packed millions of London in his electric tubes than he does in a week in Chicago. We have lots of room and money for all your experts in electrical transit. The brains you have given to these matters we have devoted to shipping and gold mining. "We own and run under our own flag 9,000,000 of tons of shipping, with 2,- ! 000.000 under other flags, as against j less than 5,000,000 of tons owned by the ! United States,-and we also own most of the best gold fields of the world, with the coutrol of the diamond industry thrown In. But we know practically nothing about electricity, and your people can make all the money they want selling us the wonderful products of American Invention and industry. Money is more. easily made in our coun try than in yours. "We have iu that small section of the empire known as Great Britain at least 40,000,000 of people, and though we do not produce Rockefellers and Astots (I except of course, my compatriot, Mr. W. W., of that ilk,we have uiuh tlio richest and quite the' worst educated of modern peoples. Our American Immi grants are profiting by this lack of edu cation to seize industries right and left. "We shall learn their methods slowly, and meanwhile they are making for tunes while we are paying the price or national apathy lu regard to modern methods of transit mid manufacture. But our American immigrants are not so successful as they- should be, consid ering the advantages they possess. Tike the men who tried to capture our bicycle Industry as an example. We were the real pioneers of the cycle trade. Then you came along with an equally good bicycle, made by the thou sand by automatic machinery. You could easily undersell our band-made article. "But you suffered nt first by sending us a machine unsulted to our national roads and our national prejudices. When I heard your salesmen trying to force goods we did not want at the cycle exhibits,. I could not but be struck by your similarity of mind to ours. We lose all the time by telling customers what they ought to have, while the Oer mau gives them what they want "Well, after a time your bicycle men got wiser. But what happened? The makers of all kinds of American bi cycles,' good and bad, mostly bad, who had got caught in the slump, dumped j down their stocks In England and killed of them drink to excess; and few have any thought beyond this one crop. The result is that the failure of a crop means partial starvation. The city of Rosario is the Chicago of South America. It is the chief wheat market of the Argentine Republic. It ships thousands of tons of wheat, corn and linseed every week. Rosario is sit uated on the Parana river about 200 miles by land from Buenos Ayres. It is 300 miles by water from that city and about as far inland from the 'Atlantic ocean as Pittsburg. Ocean steamers sail for 200 miles up the Rio de la Plata past Buenos Ayres into the mouth of the Pa rana, and then for about 300 miles up the river to Rosario. Rosario itself is one of the thriving towns of the Argen tine. It was founded about 175 years ago, but wheat raising in the Argentine gave it a great boom, and within the last the American bicycle from that mo ment "This," continued Mr. Harmsworth, '.'is not the only American industry abroad that is being killed by the 'snide' manufacturer. You have a big chance now with automobiles; the American shoe, too, is making great progress. We shall shortly be spending $500,000,000 converting our horse car services to electric; you can get most of that We must put up two or three times that amount for new suburban surface car systems for our big city. Much of that will go to the immigrant from America. "In the newspaper business your im migrants have already captured much of the rotary press trade and nearly all the typesetting and typemaking, and the best and fastest papermaking ma chinery comes from your side. Our pa per will be supplied by our own people in Canada, who will supply you, too, unless I am mistaken. The American immigrant is selling us much of our farm machinery, and the rest of that we Import we get from Canada. In steel and iron he will do well; in loco motives and other railroad supplies he is apt to make the mistake of not giving us what we want, but he will succeed nevertheless." SHOW A HEALTHY GROWTH, Kastcrn Towns Have No Season to Be Ashamed of 'ibeir Progress. The rapid growth of the cities of New England and middle Atlantic States is perhaps the most striking revelation yet made - by the twelfth decennial census. Of the 159 cities of the coun try having a population of more than 25,000, about eighty had made a greater numerical gain in the ten years just closed than in the ten years preceding. Since it goes without saying, also, that about the same number grew faster than the average 32.5 per cent it Is interesting to ascertain from a study of the bulletin where these cities are, con sidered by sections. Such a study af fords an admirable test of urban growth .and reveals in a striking man ner the remarkable progress of the northwestern part of the country. Of the eleven cities In the South At lantic group of States only three grew faster than the average for the coun try. Tnese were Atlanta, Norfolk and Jacksonville. In the south central re gion only seven out of eighteen grew footer than the average. In the west ern group six out of the twelve grew faster than the average. In the north central group, comprising the States north of the Ohio, the old free States, with the addition of Missouri, twenty two c'tles out of forty-eight made more than average progress. . With the coun try thus divided Into five great sections, uonc of the four so far mentioned shows a group of cities in which more than half were growing faster than the av erage. The remaining section is the north Atlantic; in It forty-two out of seventy cities have grown faster than .32.5 per cent In Connecticut all five of its cities of this grade made a show ing above the average and this can be said uf no other State In the Union, ex cept Rhode Island, in which all three lid the same thing. In New Jersey seven out of tenf cities were above the average; in Pennsylvania there were tleven out of eighteen; in Maine one out of one, Portland, and in Massachusetts eleven out of twenty. It should be borne In mind that the actual growth of the cities In the north central region was faster, due to'the presence of a few cities on the great lake, but the number of cities to show this tendency was, as already indicated. ten years it has almost trebled its popu lation. It has now about 150,000 rpeople. It does a big wholesale and retail busi ness, but the most of its money comes from wheat. The wheat is bagged on the farm. The cars carry it to the edge of the bluff, and Italian laborers take the bags and pitch them into chutes leading to the vessels. The bags fly down one after the other at the rate of several to the minute. At harvest time the wheat becomes congest ed at Rosario. The railroads have more than they can do to carry the crop, and almost all other traffic has to be suspend ed. The result is that the wheat is piled up in bags at the stations and left there until it can be shipped. There are no barns in the Argentine. The weather is such that the stock feeds out of doors the year around. There is no chance for the farmer to store his wheat in barns less than in the north Atlantic States. The stagnant cities are round in three regions, in Eastern Nebraska, Northern Michigan and at the headquarters of the Hudson. Omaha, Lincoln and Sioux City belong to the first group; Saginaw and Bay City to the second and Troy and Albany to the third. As a general rule the cities have grown faster in the regions of coal beds or of well-utilized water power. Boston Transcript. PREYED ON BRITISH SHIPS. Schooner Polly, Oldest Vessel Afloat, Was a Privateer in 1812. The recent storm on the Atlantic coast in which so many staunch ves sels were lost, calis attention to the fa mous old schooner Tolly, which was one of the more fortunate of the coast ing fleet. The Polly is older than most men, for it was built in Amesbury, Mass., in 1S05. If the hull timbers of the sturdy little sixty-five-ton ship could speak, they might tell many an exciting story of adventure on the salt seas, for they have seen nearly a cen tury of active service. When the Polly had been off the stocks but seven years the second war with Great Britain broke out The boat was then owned and commanded by Captain Jeduthan Upton, a patriot, who fitted his tiny vessel up with cannon, put on board an armed crew of twenty men, and start ed out as a privateer to prey on British shipping. A few months after the Polly was captured by his British Maj esty's ship Phoebe, of forty-four guns. The Captain and his men were taken to England, where they were impris oned for seven months. The prize crew placed on board the Polly, however, re volted and went over into the service of the United States. At the present time the Polly is owned and commanded by Captain Mc Farland, of Calais, Me. For ninety years it has been known as one of the fastest sailing vessels on the north coast and it can still show a clean pair of heels to many of Its more modern rivals. It has been a long time since the Polly made a regular ocean voy age. It Is now employed in trading between ports on the Maine coast SHOPPING IN PARIS. In the Opinion of Lilian Bell Earth Holds No Greater Pleasnre. Lillian Bell gives the result of her shopping experiences abroad in the Ladies' Home Companion in an Inter esting paper entitled "Shopping in the Great Cities of Europe." Of Paris, the most delightful of all cities for the woman who would buy, she says: "I consider shopping in Paris one of the greatest pleasures to be found In this vale of tears. The shops, with the exception of the Louvre, the Bon Marche and one or two of the large de partment stores of similar scope, are all small tiny, In fact and exploit but one or two things. A tiny shop for fans will be next to a milliner who makes a specialty of nothing but gauze thea ter bonnets. Perhaps next will come a linen store,- where the windows will have nothing but the most fascinating embroidery, handkerchiefs and neck FAMOri SCHOONER FOLLY. and he has to rely upon the railroads for getting it to the markets. The wheat is carried to the cars from such farms as are far from the railroad in bullock carts, the wheels of which are about eight feet high. A load weighing several tons is balanced between a couple of these wheels, and from a dozen to sixteen bill locks are harnessed in front of it. In some few of the large farms modern ma chinery is used, and the threshing is com monly done with European or American threshers. The Argentine is subject to droughts, and the crop rises and falls according to the weather. The worst thing, however, that the farmers have to contend with is the locusts. The pests that infest the Argentine are fully as bad as the lo cust plague with which the Lord afflicted Pharaoh. The only difference was that Pharaoh had his locuste for a few days, but the Argentine seems to be having theirs as a regular thing. The locusts are produced by the millions every year, and a swarm thinks nothing of a (light of 500 miles from its breeding ground through the heart of the wheat country. The locusts appear in great swarms, which often darken the sun if they fly be tween you and it. They light on every thing green and begin eating. The branches of the trees bend down wih their weight, and you can hear the snap ping of their jaws as they crunch the leaves. They will clean the crops from the fields, eating the grain down to the ground. Sometimes they will take ihe green wheat from one side of the road and pass by that on the other, and thev sometimes fly on and on for days over rich fields to feed on those beyond. The next swarm may eat that which is left. This pest of the locust has been so great that the Argentine government has' been spending large sums of money to get rid of them. The methods for ex terminating them are many and costly. Thousands of dollars are spent every year to kill them. They are caught in traps of corrngated iron. They are scoop ed up with scrapers and killed; poisons are used, and the grass, plants and weeds are sprinkled with arsenic, kerosene and creosote. They are caught in bags, driv en into ditches and are killed in all sorts of ways. In 1896 it is estimated that $80,000,000 worth of wheat was destroy ed by locusts in two states of the Argen tine. This impoverished the farmers of those states, and the national government spent $10,000,000 that year in giving them seed wheat. If the locusts are to come every year it will be a long time before the Argentine can have a serious, permanent 'effect upon the wheat market of the world. wear. Then comes the man who sells belts of every description, and parasol handles. Perhaps your next window will have such a display of diamond necklaces as would justify you in sup posing that the stock would make Tif fany choke with envy; but If you enter you will find yourself in an aperture in the wall which holds an iron safe, a two-by-four showcase and three chairs, and you will find that everything of value the owner has, except the clothes he wears. Is In his window. "So long as these shops are all crowd ed together, and so small, to shop In Paris Is really much more convenient than in one of our large department stores at home, with the additional de light of having smiling, interested ser vice. The proprietor himself enters in to your wants, and uses his quickness and intelligence to supply your de mands. He may be, and very likely Is, doubling the price on you because you are an American, but if your bruised spirit is like mine you will be perfectly willing to pay a little extra for polite ness. It is a truth that I have brought home with me no article from Paris which does not carry with it pleasant recollections of the way I bought it. Can any woman who has shopped in America bring forward a similar state ment?" How One Firm Struck Oil. A peculiar accident near Six Points, Ohio, recently gave an oil-producing firm visions of limitless wealth. .This firm drilled a well on the Wake field farm, near the village. All of the nitroglycerin shells were lowered safe ly into the well except the last one, which lodged within twenty-five feet of the surface, and was exploded in the efforts of the shooter to dislodge it This was considered unfortunate, but to the amazement of the men the oil be gan to gush forth In a manner which promised to make It the biggest well in the history of the oil business. The flow was so strong that the derrick was almost instantly deluged from top to bottom, and it soon caught fire from the boiler and was burned to the ground. The Buckeye Pipe Line Company's eight-Inch line, through which 6,000 barrels of oil pass each day, suddenly shut down. The company stopped its pumps and started to make an inves tigation. Before many hours the shut off had been traced to this well. They discovered that the well had been drilled almost on the line, which had been broken by the shot and the oil which seemed to come from the well was coming from the pipe line. This investigation ended the career of the greatest spouter in Northwestern Ohio. China Rich in Coal Deposits. China contains some of the richest coal deposits In the world. Last fall Professor Drake, of Tien-tsin. visited the coal fields In the province of Shan si, which were examined by Baron von Richthofen in 1870, and found that they are of immense extent The coal area is said to be greater than that of Penn sylvania and the anthracite coal alone contained in these fields has been esti mated at 630,000,000 tons. The Shansi coal beds are so thick and He so uni formly in a horizontal position that th practicability has been suggested ol running long lines of railroad tunnels through the beds so that the cars can be loaded in the mines all ready for distant transportation. No lady should listen to the gossip of her servant girl, or repeat It. but near ly every lady does It Some men acquire that tired feo'lag from looking for an easy b. Demolition of Tavistock Home, In Which He Lived Nine Years. An Interesting memorial of Charles Dickens is now In course of destruction by the house-breaker, says the London News. Tavistock House, Tavistock square, to which he removed on leav ing Devonshire terrace In 18'51, Is being pulled down by the ground land lord, the Duke of Bedford. Ui to the present the bouse, which was t band some, substantial and well-kept build ing, remained externally just as Dick ens left it In 1800, arid as It stands In the engraviug in Forster's "Life of Dickens." It has undergone some vicissitudes since Dickens' days. He sold it to Mr. Davis, a Jewish gentle man", of whom be said iu a letter to Mr. Willis: "I must say that in all things the purchaser has behaved thoroughly well, and that I 'cannot call to mind any occasion when I have had money dealings with a Christian that have been so satisfactory, considerate and trusting." i Mr. Davis was succeeded by Mr. and Mrs. Weldon, with whom Gounod lived for some time, holding singing classes in the large drawing room. Of late years the house has been a Jews' college, and latterly has for some months been, empty. It stands behind the northeast corner of Tavistock ' square, and, like its neighbor, Bedford house, which is also being dismantled, is too large for the neighborhood. Dickens occupied the bouse for nine years. He bought it of bis friend. Frank Stone, who had lived there sev eral years. Dickens' honse in Devon shire terrace had become too small for him. and his lease was falling in. Stone was also preparing a new house for himself, and moved his furniture into the Devonshire terrace house, that j Dickens might carry out some changes in Tavistock house, which were plan ned tiv Ilia hrnthor-in-1nn7 ITonrv Ana. tin. Dickens and his family went to Broadstairs while these works were being carried out. and removed into Tavistock house in November. Mr. Forster tells us that "Bleak House" was begun in his new abode of Tav istock house, at the end of November, 1851. In the first Twelfth Night in the new home the children's theatricals were being run, and were renewed till the chief actors were children no longer. "The best of these performances," says Mr. Forster, "were 'Tom Thumb and 'Fortuuio,' In 1854 and 1855. Dickens now joining first in the revel and Mr. Mark Lemon bringing Into it his own clever children and a very mountain of child-pleasing fun in him self." At a later period the schoolroom was turned into a theater. Clarkson Stanfield providing the scenery and Cooke, of Astley's, planning the seats. "You will be surprised at the look of the place," wrote Dickens. "It is no more like the schoolroom than it is like the sign of the Salutation inn at Am bleside, in WTestmoreland." Dickens was overwhelmed with re quests from friends to see the play. "My audience Is now ninety-three," he wrote, in despair, "and at least ten will neither hear nor see." So the play was continued for several nights. After he acquired Gadshill place, and made it a temporary summer residence, he still regarded Tavistock house not only as his London residence, but as his home. It continued to be his permanent fam ily abode till 1SG0, when he sold it and finally removed to Gadshill. His nine years' occupancy of it lias made It an object of much interest, and Ami-riean admirers especially have constantly sought it out The Hen's Delusion. Ephraim Knox lived in the center of his native village, and his hens wan dered here and there at their own sweet will, to the frequent annoyance of his neighbors. Ephraim, however, was no respecter of persons, and considered his hens "as good as anybody," and de sirable visitors. When it was decided that the town library should be built in a vacant lot "next door to him," Ephraim was tilled with pride and joy, and he and his hens superintended operations from the first. Ephralm's brother Seth was not de voted to hens. One day he was passing the site of the library with a friend and stopped to view the progress of affairs. Ephralm's hens were there, cackling away as if their lives depended on it Seth looked at them in disgust. "What in the world are those hens making such a noise for, do you sup pose? There ajn't any grain in there," said the friend. "Well," remarked Seth, dryly, "they 've had the oversight of 'most every thing in town. You know the corner stone of the building was laid yester day, and I calc-late that speckled hen over there thinks she laid it!" A Trick of the Trade. 'I I think I would like to look at a diamond ring," said the young man as the jeweler cie forward. Exactly, sir. A diamond ring for a lady?" 'Yes." 'A young lady?" 'Yes." 'A young lady to whom you are en gaged ?" 'What's the difference whether I'm engaged to her or not?" asked the cus tomer, with considerable tartness. 'A great deal, sir. You intend this ring for a Christmas present prob ably?" . "I probably do." "Very well We have diamond rings for $25 and diamond rings for $50, $75, and $100. If not actually engaged to the girl, take a $25 ring, and when she brings it in here to find out the cost we'll lie $50 worth for your benefit. If really engaged, take a higher price, and you can pawn it for two-thirds of its value after marriage. Now. then, make your selection. Washington Post. No Backbiter. Mr. Johnson Did you remawk at de club night dat I looked like a lobster, sun? Mr. Jackson No, suh. I am no back bitter, suh. If I wished to east any aspersions upon de lobster family I should go right to a fish market and do It straight to deyr faces, suh. Dat's my style, suh! Puck. If a man can't find work in s vu. be might as well quit looking.