"Are you as well as usual?" "Yes'm."

"Well, what's the trouble?"

"Nothing-only-only I was thinking of home-and-and how foolish girls is to give up everything just for a notion, and that's what I done when I came to Boston, and that's all, Miss."

"I am sure that is a good deal," I remarked reassuringly, "but then, you know, Cummaquid is so near." "That's just it; it's too near. I wish it was across the ocean, I do!" and Annie tried very hard to keep the tremble out of her voice.

"You're homesick, and yet your home is too near? That's curious. Now, Annie, if you don't mind, suppose you tell me all about it."

"Sure, you've a sympathizing heart to bother about a new girl who's silly like me, but indeed I'm fairly distracted with that Luís coming here to Boston to bother. the life out of me."

"And who is Luís?" I asked.

"He's a wild Porto Rican, and oh! he's fierce," said Annie, cataloguing her lover in very much the same tone of voice as though she had said a South African tiger, or a lion of the desert.

"I thought he was lovely first, when he used to play on the guitar and sing, and he was tall and had black eyes and coal black curls, and my, how he could dance! But, la But, la sakes! what's the good of them things if you've got no peace of mind! No'm. It was worriment about him drove me from home, and now he's here it's worriment over him'll drive me back."

else just as well, or better than him?" Annie's head dropped and her blue eyes filled with tears.

"Yes'm, I did-I do-but I didn't know it, and now it is too late," and Annie's plump hands tried in vain to cover the burning tearstained cheeks. Although I call myself a practical woman, the situation somehow appealed to me.

"Never mind, Annie," I said, in a soothing, maternal sort of way; "who knows but that it will all come out right very soon?”

"But what is there to make it come right? No; I didn't know a true man's love when I had it, and now I must n-never know it!"

With the calm of hopelessness, Annie proceeded to lay the cloth and arrange my toast and chop and strawberries on the little round table, which looked strangely lonely to me to-day. Why was it that I, a confirmed "bachelor girl," was always being made the recipient of. confidences of this sort? I could not escape hearing other people's love stories. I, who had so persistently shut my ears and heart to one which had so long and persistently knocked at the door of my soul? It was altogether incongruous; in a way ridiculous. What a necessity this sort of sentiment seemed to be to some people. Of course, with a woman with a definite plan of life mapped out, it was different.

I ate my luncheon with a correspondingly grateful sense of aloofness from the disturbing elements. of sentiment. Nobody's comings or goings gave me any sensation beyond conventional pleasure and regret. My own goings and comings were nobody's particular occasion for sorrow or joy. I was distinctly comfortable - but was I happy?

The question

question propounded

with impertinent insistence.

"Annie," I called as I rose from the table. "Here's a ticket for Keith's. I think you need a little exercise and amusement."

"Oh, thank you, Miss Hawtry; it do seem like you always know just how a person feels!"

"I don't know anything about some feelings; but never mind, I hope you'll feel better after the afternoon off. Don't fail to get back in time for my tea; I dislike irregular hours for meals."

"Yes'm."

The summer twilight was bringing its grateful repose and coolness over the heated city when a vigorous pressure of the electric door bell informed me that my visitor had arrived.

"Is that you, Mr. Puffer?" I called through the tube.

"Steady there, don't forget your manners," objected Fritz, but Trouble appeared to have undertaken investigation on an independent line. Back and forth she rushed down the corridor to the dining room door and back again to her master, with an expression of alert. curiosity in her soft eyes I had never seen before.

"I think perhaps she's hungry and smells something to eat," I suggested, and going to the dining room door I set it ajar. "Go, beg for a biscuit," I said, and the tiny creature rushed by me eagerly.

"Give the little dog a biscuit," I called to Annie, and then returned to Mr. Puffer and the photographs. In another instant I heard a little cry from the kitchen, followed by a

"Come up," I said.

From the region of the kitchen I could hear Annie moving about, and now and then the rattling of a teacup.

"I've fetched a batch to choose from," said Fritz in the manner of a professional. "This one shows her with The Fad' in her mouth and standing on her hind legs; this is a good likeness, but don't give all points as well as the one showing front view with forepaws on paper. Then here's a couple of heads, and this here represents her to home in her bed, showing sheets, spread, pillow and so forth. Take your pick."

A choice under such circumstances was a matter of nice discrimination. While I was examining the pictures, the usually docile

her teeth firmly clinched in Annie's dress-skirt Trouble was desperately struggling to drag her into the parlor. Fritz and I both ran to the door. At the same moment Trouble made a frantic dash forward and succeeded in precipitating my pretty maid into the arms of the newsvender, bowling herself over on her head at my feet.

release herself from Mr. Puffer's encircling arms.

"You've got my crutch and I've got you," quoth Mr. Puffer stoutly, "and for the third time the 'swap's for keeps,' sure!" I felt a curious little lump in my throat as I picked Trouble up in my arms.

"You're both of you very ungrateful to your best friend," I said. "No, no, I'll give her the biscuit, if you please," and I walked off leaving my maid and the news-vender in the summer moonlight with their new, old happiness.

"Come, doggie, let's go out for a run in the Fens; we won't be missed."

When we came back a quarter of an hour later, my little companion darted ahead of me and picked up a dirty envelope that lay on the vestibule floor. By some accident a letter had fallen out of the mail box. She poked it into my hand. My heart gave a loud thump as I saw the familiar writing.

"God bless you, Trouble!" I whispered.

"Now, Mr. Puffer, Trouble has brought me some good news, too," I said as I walked into the parlor.

Fritz eyed me keenly. "I hope it's like " then he stopped in embarrassment.

"Yes, it is."

"You don't say! Hurrah for Trouble!"

"Now, Annie, Mr. Puffer can help you get some supper for everybody." Annie paused at the door.

"We're going to name her Joy, Fritz and me, for there isn't going to be any more trouble, is there, Fritz?" The door closed gently and there was a note of hope in the thumpety-thump of Fritz's crutch as he stumped down the corridor. And that note echoed in my heart as I sat down and wrote just one single word across a sheet of paper.

"Let's drop the message in a box, doggie," I whispered as we stepped out into the quiet street. "I've found out the truth. It is just the

"I will be in Boston Thursday, the nineteenth, to ask you a question. James Fleming."

I stooped down and laid my head on the soft, silky brown head.

love that makes happiness, and now that Fritz and Annie and I, the clever Miss Hawtry, have found it out, why Annie's words will come true. There won't be for us any more trouble."

Yo

OU would recognize me as a teacher if you met me among the Himalayas; you would know that I came from Maine if you heard me speak ten words. The marks of my calling and the "down east" accent are equally unmistakable. My experience of teachers' conventions extends over a period of more than twenty years, though, as I began teaching at the age of sixteen, I do not yet speak with the authority of the aged. But, having observed with regret that no periodical has yet printed a symposium upon "Conventions that Have Helped Me," I hereby humbly take upon myself, in default of a better, the task of introducing the neglected subject.

My first teaching-the initiatory step to my first convention-was upon a suburban hillside where the windows of my schoolroom looked out upon a field in which, it now seems to me, a throng of crows was always holding a convention; but theirs, apparently, was political rather than educational. I was engaged to serve for three terms of ten weeks each, at a salary of six dollars a week; from which you will readily perceive that my annual stipend was one hundred and eighty dollars.

With much trepidation I attended a teachers' convention for the first time. With the tender conscience of youth I applied all the adverse

criticism I heard-there was much of it-to myself, and wondered how the speakers could have hit off my numerous shortcomings so exactly. There were times when I expected the whole body of teachers assembled to turn toward me, as I sat shrinking in a corner, and ask why, since these things were so, I dared to count myself among the elect at all.

But the most effective speech was more impersonal; or, at least, more obviously directed to many persons. That was a time when all women of less severe occupations than ours were tying their collars with yards of bright colored ribbon, and this speaker urged teacherslady teachers, of course, for the feminine element completely engulfs the other sex in a teachers' convention-to wear fresh ribbons. A bit of bright color, he said, especially upon a stormy day, would bring sunshine into the little. lives, stimulate the impoverished imaginations, give intellectual acuteness to the dull, and prove a potent moral force with power to ennoble the young characters entrusted to our moulding influences-and a few other things.

The lecture lifted us from the common rut, at least; but silk ribbon was more expensive in those days than now, and even now it must be indulged in sparingly by a person who earns exactly one hun

dred and eighty dollars per annum. Do not think, however, that this fervent appeal was wasted. On the contrary it supplied moral force in a way undreamed of by its author. Soon afterward I received an invitation to attend a meeting of the whole teaching force of the city. I went at the appointed time, but with great trepidation, fearing I had committed some unknown and awful fault for which I was to be publicly censured. Self-complacency is a plant of late growth in a teacher's life! My fears, however, were groundless. The object of the meeting was to obtain the signatures of all the teachers of our city to a petition politely requesting an increase in our salaries. There were teachers in town who received two hundred and fifty dollars a year and on that munificent basis schedule had been prepared setting forth a teacher's necessary expenses in comparison with her income. Some of the items were as follows:

a

And so on, together with an appended statement of some things a teacher could not afford, among which were concert or lecture tickets-theatre tickets being too frivolous to be mentioned-Christmas gifts and a bank book. The city government needed no second. appeal. They surrendered at once. and voted each teacher forthwith an increase of one dollar a week in her salary, regardless of her qualificaThus tions or length of service.

did bright ribbons stimulate the imagination, give intellectual acuteness to the dull and prove a moral force in the community.

Years passed, finding me still engaged in guiding youthful steps in wisdom's ways, and each year brought its convention. Most of these were on the whole sensible; a few were not. Every one of them brought a few ideas so suggestive and practical that we longed to go home at once and try them upon our helpless charges. Every convention, nevertheless, was incredibly dull in places, while at the same time presenting some humorous aspect which enlightened the dullness and frequently made it a thing to be remembered with joy and profit. For instance, we were holding our convention in a little hill town full of the wonderful beauty of sky and field and forest. It was clear, bright October weather and the trees were gorgeous in their autumn foliage. Our morning session had closed at half past twelve and two o'clock found us assembled again in the same room, which was crowded, insufficiently ventilated and overheated, for besides the hot air furnace our hosts had heaped the open fireplace with birch logs and the beautiful, leaping flames were scorching us almost unbearably.

We were listening to an address upon "The Necessary Preparation of a Teacher," given by one of those people from outside the state who pounce upon us now and then, and strive with commendable zeal to mitigate the impending "barbarism in Maine." Like other heathen before us, doubtless, we wished he had a different field. Under chosen some circumstances we might have