creature, like the villain in the play, would "still pursue her," flung herself into my arms, crying, "Jack! Jack! Save me!"

It was the first time she had called me "Jack," and I needed no second invitation. I proceeded to save her in the usual way, by holding her to my heart and kissing her lovely hair reassuringly, as I murmured: "You are safe, my darling; not a hair of your precious head shall be hurt. Don't be frightened."

She shivered like a leaf.

"I am

frightened," she said. "I can't help being frightened. He will chase us, I know. Where is he? What is he doing now?"

Looking up to determine if I need abbreviate this blissful moment, I saw the enraged animal disappearing in the side door of the barn; and it was a nice, comfortable Durham cow, that somewhat rare but possible thing, a sportive cow! "Is he gone?" breathed Kitty from my waistcoat.

"Yes, he is gone she is gone, darling. But don't move; it may come again."

My first too hasty assurance had calmed Kitty's fears, and she raised her charming flushed face from its retreat and prepared to withdraw. I did n't facilitate the preparations, and a moment of awkward silence ensued.

"Might I inquire," I asked, "if the dear little person at present reposing in my arms will stay there (with intervals for rest and refreshment) for the rest of her natural life?"

She withdrew entirely now, all but her hand, and her eyes sought the ground. "I suppose I shall have to now that is, if you think at least, I suppose you do think that this has been giving you encouragement."

"I do indeed, — decisive, undoubted, barefaced encouragement."

as if I were in my sober senses," she replied. "I was frightened within an inch of my life. I told you this morning that I was dreadfully afraid of bulls, especially mad ones, and I told you that my nurse frightened me, when I was a child, with awful stories about them, and that I never outgrew my childish terror. I looked everywhere about: the barn was too far, the fence too high, I saw him coming, and there was nothing but you and the open country; of course I took you. It was very natural, I'm - any girl would have done it." "To be sure," I replied soothingly (not daring to look at the barn door, for fear that the cow would come out), "any girl would have run after me, as you say.”

sure,

"I did n't say any girl would have run after you, · you need n't flatter yourself; and besides, I was really trying to protect you as well as to gain protection; else why should I have cast myself on you like a catamount, or a catacomb, or whatever the thing is?"

"Yes, darling, I thank you for saving my life, and I am willing to devote the remainder of it to your service as a pledge of my gratitude; but if you should take up life-saving as a profession, dear, don't throw yourself on a fellow with the full impact of your weight multiplied into your velocity and hold tight” —

"Jack! Jack!" she cried, putting her hand over my lips, and getting it well kissed in consequence. "If you'll only forget that speech, and never, never taunt me with it afterwards, I'll - I'll - well, I 'll do anything in reason; yes, even marry you!"

--

HE.

CANTERBURY, July 25. The Royal Fountain.

in wooing her, and can never lay flattering unction to my soul that she is really

won.

But after aunt Celia had looked up my family record and given a provisional consent, and papa Schuyler had cabled a reluctant blessing, I did not feel capable of any further self-restraint.

It was twilight here in Canterbury, and we were sitting on the vine-shaded veranda of aunt Celia's lodging. Kitty's head was on my shoulder. There is something very queer about that; when Kitty's head is on my shoulder I am not capable of any consecutive train of thought. When she puts it there I see stars, then myriads of stars, then, oh! I can't begin to enumerate the steps by which ecstasy mounts to delirium; but at all events, any operation which demands exclusive use of the intellect is beyond me at these times. Still I gathered my stray wits together and said, "Kitty!"

weeks. I keep him six mile away. There be n't nothing but cows in the home medder.' But I did n't think that you knew, you deceitful, secretive fellow! I dare say you planned the whole thing in advance, in order to take advantage of my fright!"

"Never! I am incapable of such an unnecessary subterfuge! Besides, Kitty, I could not have made an accomplice of a cow, you know."

"Then," she said, with great dignity, "if you had been a gentleman and a man of honor, you would have cried, Unhand me, girl! You are clinging to me under a misunderstanding!

SHE.

CHESTER, August 1. The Grosvenor.

Jack and I are going over this same ground next summer, on our wedding trip. We shall sail for home next week, and we have n't half done justice to the cathedrals. After the first two, we saw nothing but each other on a general background of architecture. I hope my mind is improved, but oh, I am so hazy about all the facts I have read since I knew Jack! Winchester and Salisbury stand out superbly in my memory. They acquired their ground before it was occupied with other matters. I shall never forget, for instance, that Winchester has

"Ever since the first. Oh, Jack, stop looking at me in that way! Not the very first, not when I not when you - not when we no, not then, but the next morning, I said to Farmer Hendry, I wish you would keep your savage bull chained up while we are here; not for me, I am fond of animals, aunt Celia is awfully afraid of them, especially those that go mad, like yours!' Lor', miss,' said Farmer Hendry, 'he have n't been pastured here for three

but

est nave of all the English cathedrals. And I shall never forget so long as I live that Jane Austen and Isaac Newt— Oh dear! was it Isaac Newton or Izaak Walton that was buried in Winchester and Salisbury? To think that that beautiful fact should have slipped from my mind, after all the trouble I took with it! But I know that it was Isaac somebody, and that he was buried in—well, he was buried in one of those two places. I am not certain which, but I can ask Jack; he is sure to know.

Kate Douglas Wiggin.

I READ lately, but not for the first time, a Plea for Humor which won for its advocate her degree of docteur ès lettres; and while no less pleased than before by the pith and wit of the argument, I felt more than ever the greater need of a plea for seriousness. If the Plea for Humor were addressed to an English audience, it could not be debarred; and to judge by the names and quotations cited, it was England that the advocate had chiefly in mind. Lang, Dickens, Birrell, Radford, Butler, Shorthouse, Harrison, Charlotte Brontë, Miss Austen, Bagehot, Carlyle, Faber, Thackeray, Swinburne, Saintsbury, George Eliot, Peacock, Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, M.. Gladstone, Pope, Goldsmith, Burnet, Fielding, Trollope, Disraeli, the Rev. Henry Martyn, are the examples and authorities; only two Americans, Dr. Holmes and Mr. Howells, are named. If Miss Repplier wished to offer her sword to the wits and humorists of Great Britain against their standing army of dullards, she should have taken one of their periodicals as her field. Addressing an American audience, she attacks a nation whose worst vice is want of seriousness, if indeed that be not the universal shortcoming of the end of this century.

Leaving this issue for the present, let us survey the ground on which the charge of the decline of humor and the sense of humor is based. It is mainly the disfavor which has overtaken certain authors; there is really little more than that. English writers of the eighteenth century who held the public ear by their jovial tones are summoned from limbo as witnesses to the dullness of our day; we are accused of being too grave to find these rollicking blades good company. There are other reasons for the 1 This article was in print before the author saw Colonel T. W. Higginson's Decline of the NO. 415. 40

VOL. LXIX.

neglect into which they have fallen which Miss Repplier does not wholly overlook, but there are some still more to the point to which she pays no heed. The novelists of a hundred and fifty years ago have lost their popularity, it is true, but do the poets, dramatists, essayists, and divines of the same period fare better? There is a class of readers who affect the Elizabethan age, but there is none, though there may be here and there an individual, who delights in the literature of the last century. A few comedies of that period still hold the stage, and over the universal oblivion beetles the memory of Dr. Johnson, on which lightly perches. Oliver Goldsmith. There was a time, not so long ago, when the whole society of London, including the clever set, were in transports of mirth over Miss Burney's novels: have they still a public, however choice? Does Miss Repplier herself think them very amusing? Putting the eighteenth century aside for a wider retrospect, where do we find the famous authors of bygone times, the immortals apart, - on the tables of booklovers, or on their shelves? To go no further back than the beginning of our century, who weeps nowadays over Thaddeus of Warsaw, or shudders at the Mysteries of Udolpho? Is sensibility extinct, too?1

So many renowned masters in every line of literature having grown dumb through age, it would be strange if the humorists should be an exception, — the more so that, by the nature of their genius, they are fated to become silent sooner than others. No quality is more evanescent and volatile than the essence of a joke; it often evaporates while taking the form of words, and can be told only by a glance or gesture. Fun in Sentimental and Miss Repplier's Decay of Sentiment.