against by the little town; and if, in addition to his masculine gender, and his connection with the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen as to talk of being poor, why, then, indeed, he must be sent to Coventry.

66

Poverty" was a word not to be mentioned to ears polite. We had tacitly agreed to ignore that any with whom we associated on terms of visiting equality, could ever be prevented by poverty from doing anything that they wished. If we walked to or from a party, it was because the night was so fine, or the air so refreshing, not because sedan-chairs were expensive. If we wore prints instead of summer silks, it was because we preferred a washing material; and so on, till we blinded ourselves to the vulgar fact that we were, all of us, people of very moderate means. Of course, then, we did not know what to make of a man who could speak of poverty as if it was not a disgrace.

Yet, somehow, Captain Brown made himself respected in Cranford, and was called upon, in spite of all resolutions to the contrary. I was surprised to hear his opinions quoted as authority at a visit which I paid to Cranford about a year after he had settled in the town. My own friends had been among the bitterest opponents of any proposal to visit the captain and his daughters only twelve months before; and now he was even admitted in the tabooed hours before twelve. True, it was to discover the cause of a smoking chimney, before the fire was lighted; but still Captain Brown walked upstairs, nothing daunted, spoke in a voice too large for the room, and joked quite in the way of a tame man about the house.

He had been blind to all the small slights, and omissions of trivial ceremonies, with which he had been received. He had been friendly, though the Cranford ladies had

been cool; and with his manly frankness had overpowered all the shrinking which met him as a man who was not ashamed to be poor. And at last his excellent masculine common sense had gained him an extraordinary place as authority among the Cranford ladies. He himself went on in his course, as unaware of his popularity as he had been of the reverse; and I am sure he was startled one day when he found his advice so highly esteemed as to cause some counsel which he had given in jest to be taken in sober, serious earnest.

It was on this subject: An old lady had an Alderney cow, which she looked upon as a daughter. You could not pay the short quarter-of-an-hour call without being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful intelligence of this animal. The whole town knew and kindly regarded Miss Betty Barker's Alderney; therefore great was the sympathy and regret when, in an unguarded moment, the poor cow tumbled into a lime pit. She moaned so loudly that she was soon heard and rescued; but meanwhile the poor beast had lost most of her hair, and came out looking naked, cold, and miserable, in a bare skin.

Everybody pitied the animal, though a few could not restrain their smiles at her droll appearance. Miss Betty Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay; and it was said she thought of trying a bath of oil. This remedy, perhaps, was recommended by some one of the number whose advice she asked; but the proposal, if ever it was made, was knocked on the head by Captain Brown's decided "Get her a flannel waistcoat, ma'am, if you wish to keep her alive. But my advice is, kill the poor creature at once."

Miss Betty Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the captain heartily. She set to work, and by-and-by all the town

turned out to see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark gray flannel. I have watched her myself many a time.

Am'a zons, in Greek legend, a race of | Manx, relating to the Isle of Man, in the warlike women who were supposed

to have dwelt on the coast of the Black Sea. They were represented as forming a state from which men were excluded.

dic ta to'ri al, overbearing.

ec cen tric'i ty, oddity.

re tal i a'tion, a paying back in kind. co'gent, compelling assent; not easily

denied.

gig'ot, the leg o' mutton sleeve.

Irish Sea. The Manx people have many quaint customs.

Tin'wald Mount, in the Isle of Man, between Peel and Castletown. Spar'tans, an ancient people of Greece whose boasted national virtue was indifference to suffering.

sent to Cov'en try, to send a man to Coventry is to take no notice of him whatever.

ta booed', forbidden.

MRS. ELIZABETH C. GASKELL (1810-1865) was an English novelist. She was greatly interested in the condition of the mill operatives in Manchester, England, and rendered notable service in relieving their poverty. "Cranford" is her most successful novel.

THE KING

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

THEY rode right out of the morning sun

A glimmering, glittering cavalcade
Of knights and ladies, and every one

In princely sheen arrayed;

And the king of them all, oh, rode he ahead,
With helmet of gold, and a plume of red
That spurted about in the breeze and bled
In the bloom of the everglade.

And they rode high over the dewy lawn,
With brave, glad banners of every hue
That rolled in ripples, as they rode on
In splendor, two and two;

And the tinkling links of the golden reins
Of the steeds they rode rang such refrains
As the castanets in a dream of Spain's

Intensest gold and blue.

And they rode and rode; and the steeds they neighed
And pranced, and the sun on their glossy hides
Flickered and lightened and glanced and played
Like the moon on rippling tides;

And their manes were silken, and thick and strong,
And their tales were flossy, and fetlock-long,

And jostled in time to the teeming throng
And the knightly song besides.

Clank of scabbard and jingle of spur,

And the fluttering sash of the queen went wild
In the wind, and the proud king glanced at her
As one at a wilful child,

And as knight and lady away they flew,
And the banners flapped, and the falcon, too,
And the lances flashed and the bugle blew;
He kissed his hand and smiled.

And then, like a slanting sunlit shower,

The pageant glittered across the plain,
And the turf spun back, and the wildweed flower
Was only a crimson stain.

And a dreamer's eyes they are downward cast,
As he blends these words with the wailing blast:
"It is the King of the Year rides past!"

And Autumn is here again.

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY was born in Greenfield, Indiana, in 1852. He was for some years a painter, and later a journalist. He has written a great many dialect poems, and unusually charming poems of childhood and nature.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

THE name of James Russell Lowell, the poet, was first known to me at the age of nine years, when I began to go to the same school with him. He was four years older than I, but I often heard about him from an elder brother of mine who was in his class. My brother was large and strong, being the "big boy" of the school, and he held among the pupils the honorary title of "Daddy." I, being the youngest in the school, looked up to him and to all his classmates as being somewhat like the heroes of the American Revolution, and he was my champion at times when the older and rougher boys ventured to treat me badly. I think he occasionally protected Lowell also, who was small and slight.

Lowell was not then a handsome boy, but he had a fine forehead and very fine eyes, which lighted up what was otherwise a rather heavy face. He and I, with my brother and William Story, afterwards famous as a sculptor, had the good fortune to be the only day scholars in the school; the boys who boarded there had a much less pleasant time. Mr. Wells, the principal of the school, was an Englishman and a firm believer in the effects of a birch rod, which descended freely on his scholars when they did not behave to his liking. There was much grumbling among the boys as to the food, which they thought scanty and poor; but I well remember the joy it was to me to be occasionally asked to stay to dinner, and to have the unusual and exciting sensation of having pudding before meat, an old English habit which was practised at the school.

Lowell was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Febru