you will keep a sharp lookout for quail this week. It would be nice to have one or two for our Christmas dinner. Of course we cannot afford corned beef and cabbage, like those rich people whom you call by their first names when you write about them in the Sunday papers; but I do hope we will not be obliged to put up with cakes and pastry and such wretched stuff."

"Quail!" exclaimed her husband; "they are so scarce and shy this winter that we are obliged to take setter dogs with us to the entertainments at which they are served. But I will do my best, darling."

As soon as William had gone to bed Susan took from its hiding-place the present which she had prepared for her husband and proceeded to sew it to the inside of his ulster as a Christmas surprise for him. She sighed to think that it was the best she could afford this year. It was a useful rather than an ornamental gift-a simple rubber pocket, made from a piece of an old mackintosh, and intended for William to carry soup in.

But Susan had a bright, hopeful spirit, and a smile soon smoothed the furrows from her face as she murmured, "How nice it will be when William comes home with his new pocket filled with nice, warm, nourishing bouillon!" and then she glanced up from her work and saw that her daughter, little golden-haired Eva, had entered the room, and was looking at her out of her great, truthful, deep-blue eyes.

It was Christmas Eve, and as Jacob Scaffold trudged through the frosty streets the keen air brought a ruddy glow to his cheeks and tipped his nose with a brighter carmine than any that he used in the practise of his art. Entering the hall in which the ball of the Gilt-edged Coterie was taking place, the

proud old house and sign painter quickly divested himself of his outer wraps and made his way to the committee room.

Then, adorned with a huge badge and streamer, he strolled out to greet his friends who were making merry on the polished floor of the ball-room. But, although the band played its most stirring measures and the lights gleamed on arms and necks of dazzling whiteness, old Jacob Scaffold sighed deeply as he seated himself in a rather obscure corner and allowed his eyes to roam about the room as if in search of some familiar face.

The fact was that the haughty, purse-proud old man was thinking of another Christmas Eve ten years before, when his daughter Susan had danced at this same ball, the brightest, the prettiest, and the most sought-after girl on the floor.

"And to think," said the old man to himself, "that, with all the opportunities she had to make a good match, she should have taken up with that reporter in the shiny dress-suit! It's five years since I've heard anything of her, but of late I've been thinking that maybe I was too harsh with her, and perhaps—

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a servant, who told him that some one desired to see him in the com

mittee room. On reaching that apartment he found a little girl of perhaps eight years of age, plainly clad, and carrying a basket in her hand. Fixing her eyes on Jacob Scaffold, she said:

"Please, sir, are you the chairman of the press committee?" "I am," replied the puzzled artist; "but who are you?" "I am the reporter of the Sunday Guff. My papa has charge of the 'What the Four Hundred Are Doing' column, but tonight he is obliged to attend a chromo-literary reception, where there will be nothing to eat but tea and cake. Papa has reported your balls and chowder excursions for the past

five years, and we have always had ham for dessert for a week afterward. We had all been looking forward to your Christmas Eve ball, and when papa told us that he would have to go to the tea-and-cake place to-night mama felt so badly that I took papa's ticket out of his pocket when he was asleep and came here myself. Papa has a thick ulster, full of nice big pockets, that he puts on when he goes out to report, but I have brought a basket.”

The child finished her simple and affecting narrative, and the members of the press committee looked at one another dumfounded. Jacob Scaffold was the first to break the silence.

"And what is your name, little child?" he inquired.

"Eva Swallowtail," she answered, as she turned a pair of trusting, innocent blue eyes full upon him.

The old man grew pale and his lips trembled as he gathered his grandchild in his arms. The other members of the committee softly left the room, for they all knew the story of Susan Scaffold's mésalliance and her father's bitter feelings toward her and her husband.

"What!" cried Jacob Scaffold, "my grandchild wanting bread? Come to me, little one, and we'll see what can be done for you."

And putting on his heavy ulster, he took little Eva by the hand and led the way to the great thoroughfare, on which the stores were still open.

It was a happy family party that sat down to dinner in William Swallowtail's humble home that bright Christmas Day, and well did the little ones enjoy the treat which their generous new-found grandparent provided for them. They began with a soup made of wine jelly, and ended with a delicious dessert

of corned-beef sandwiches and large German pickles; and then, when they could eat no more, and not even a pork pie could tempt their appetites, Grandpa Scaffold told his daughter that he was willing to lift his son-in-law from the hard and ill-paid labor of writing society chronicles and give him a chance to better himself with a whitewash brush. "And," continued the old man, "if I see that he possesses true artistic talent, I will some day give him a chance at the side of a house."-"The Literary Shop."

Samuel Minturn Peck

Bessie Brown, M.D.

"TWAS April when she came to town;

The birds had come, the bees were swarming. Her name, she said, was Doctor Brown:

I saw at once that she was charming. She took a cottage tinted green,

Where dewy roses loved to mingle; And on the door, next day, was seen A dainty little shingle.

Her hair was like an amber wreath;
Her hat was darker, to enhance it.
The violet eyes that glowed beneath
Were brighter than her keenest lancet.
The beauties of her glove and gown

The sweetest rime would fail to utter.
Ere she had been a day in town

The town was in a flutter.

The gallants viewed her feet and hands,
And swore they never saw such wee things;

The gossips met in purring bands

And tore her piecemeal o'er the tea-things. The former drank the Doctor's health

With clinking cups, the gay carousers; The latter watched her door by stealth, Just like so many mousers.