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The Fertility of the Land. By I. P. Roberts.

The Development of the Frog's Egg, an Introduction to
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Morgan.

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Christian Sociology. By Shailer Matthews.
Wild Neighbors. By Ernest Ingersoll.
In the Tideway. By Mrs. Flora Annie Steel.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL AND COMPANY:
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Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days. By Annie Beaston.
College Training for Women. By Kate Holladay Claghorn.
Evolution of France Under the Third Republic. By Baron
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The Coming People. By Charles F. Dole.

Men I have Known. By Dean Farrar.

Boyhood of Famous Authors. By William H. Rideing.
The King of the Park. By Marshall Saunders.

Founding of the German Empire by William I. By Heinrich
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Flowers of Field, Hill, and Swamp. By Caroline A. Creevey.
Leonora of the Yawmish. By Francis Dana.

Georgia Scenes. Characters, Incidents, etc., in the First
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The Missionary Sheriff. By Octave Thanet.

An Epistle to Posterity. By M. E. W. Sherwood.
"Bobbo," and Other Fancies. By Thomas Wharton. With
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A Loyal Traitor. A Story of the War of 1812. By James
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Theory of Thought and Knowledge. By Borden P. Bowne.
A Story-Teller's Pack. A Volume of Nine Short Stories.
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The Pursuit of the House-Boat. Being Some Further Account of the Doings of the Associated Shades, under the Leadership of Sherlock Holmes, Esq. By John Kendrick

"No, I ain't got anything unkind to say against Sophia Sloan. She's welcome to put a fence about her own land whenever she likes. But that corner's stood open nigh on to forty year and it didn't need no fence nohow."

We were in Benjamin Humphrey's own tap room and as he wiped off the top of the high bar we could look through the window and the shade of the porch at Sophia Sloan's property opposite. It was a four-square stone house fronting the turnpike, with a triangular strip of land lying between two of the four roads which meet at the Briar Rose Inn, on one side, and a garden on the other. Very green and sweet were the vines that clung to the old weather-dyed walls; but a brand new pale fence, running to a point at the crossroads, had played havoc with the shrubbery of the triangular strip.

"How did it happen; I thought thee was neighborly," said I in the plain language. Then Benjamin told me the story from the beginning.

There had never been an unfriendly word between the Sloan people and the Humphreys. They had lived opposite for half a century and the old folks as well the children belonged to the same meeting; worked side by side on the adjoining farms; and shared the same quiet life by the roadside.

Sophia gives out that it's all owing to the chickens. They peck up her grass. But it's But it's the fiddle that lays at the bottom of Sophia's contrariness-Amos's fiddle."

Amos Humphreys was a stalwart brown farmer lad who, working hard all day long in the barn and fields, took to the consolations of the violin at evening. Playing it must have come to him as a natural instinct for he never had a lesson, and opportunities for learning by observation were rare indeed in the orthodox neighborhood of the Briar Rose. When its strains first woke the seemly quietude there was consternation in Benjamin Humphreys' household and vigorous disapproval from

Sophia Sloan across the way. Amos was forbidden to keep the unholy instrument at the inn, and the ruffled current of tranquillity flowed once again under the great maples by the four roads.

Amos carried his fiddle to his elder brother's farmhouse, a mile or more down the Farmstead pike. The convictions of the new generation were more elastic. While music, so it was called, could not charm, it was passively endured.

To Warner Humphrey's came now and again of a seventh-day night the more daring of the new blood of Trimbletown, and the fiddle introduced the wild thought of dancing. From a timid and make-believe start the Virginia Reel finally came to be known in all its alluring wickedness; and, after this, nothing could save the old walls of conservatism from destruction. They went down before the Lancers and Polka, and the bolder innovators actually came at last to waltz upon their crumbling ruins.

But of this the elders had as yet heard nothing. The fiddle might moan a trifle and arouse the holy ire of some reverent passer-by; but the dance was unsuspected. It went on in the depths of Warner Humphrey's big barn, standing down the slope toward the lower meadows. None might hear or see, saving those who passed through the dark lane by the house and crossed the little hill. The sinful fact might never have been betrayed but for a sentiment, and Amos himself was the moving cause of the exposure.

"Where is thee going, Amos?" called a soft voice one seventh-day evening as Amos set out for his brother's farm. Had it not been delivered of articulate words, the pleasant voice might have come from some thrush in the apple boughs. No one was visible, but Amos well knew where to look for the speaker.

She was leaning over Sophia Sloan's garden fence, hidden behind a row of tall hollyhocks

that defied the Quaker simplicity with their score of brave colors.

Amos turned aside, opened the wicket gate and stepped in upon the cool slab pathway. She still stood among the cluster of motley tints, but her face was turned toward the gate. Amos had won something in emotion in return for the loss of a shad-belly coat and broad-brim hat; but, even without a heart to throb, some dumb feelings must have stirred at sight of Anne Sloan's sweet face. He went over and leaned an elbow on the fence beside her.

"No, no," he said, Inot that one. Give me one from thee own bunch." She blushed a little and looked down at the yellow bunch at her throat. Then, with a sudden impulse, she plucked it out from the folds of white lawn and handed it bashfully to Amos. He took both hand and flowers; but she snatched the hand away, and Amos's gallantry expended itself in a kiss upon the yellow petals.

"Good-bye," he called from the road; and she waved him a return through the clustered flowers.

What else could he think of? She was the prettiest girl in Meeting, the sweetest and

prettiest. Why shouldn't he have lingered longer? Was it better playing the fiddle or being with Anne? But then Sophia. She'd be back before long and he must go anyhow; for since he had taken to worldly amusements she no longer countenanced his visits.

He walked on for a mile in the twilight, thinking of these and a thousand other things, such as a warmth in the blood sends seething through the mind, until he saw a wagon coming slowly toward him. This also fell in with the current of his thoughts, for he knew it at once as Sophia's. When he came near to it he called out. She stopped a little impatiently, and her straight mouth showed the disapproval of Amos, which habit bid her conceal. The thin drab circle of her silk bonnet, and its white lace lining, the lawn shawl crossed on her breast, and the straight folds of her brown dress, gave physical embodiment to her rigid manner.

Anne says she's going over in the buggy to Kitchen's. She told me to tell thee, Sophia. She didn't want to wait any longer.'

She might have done better to choose another messenger," was the reply, and Sophia lifted the reins and was off.

And this set Amos to thinking on another thing, which sent his heels into the stony pike with unusual force.

She was going to Kitchen's. half a mile from Warner's place. He could do it in twenty minutes. it he resolved on the spot.

It was only Why not? And to do

The barn was lighted by a half-dozen farm lanterns swung from the beams; and around these, and hanging on the borders of the haymows and meal bins were festoons of woven leaves. On the floor, polished by flail and wagon tire to a smoothness beyond the reach of wax, stood ten or twelve girls and farmer lads waiting for the music to begin. When Amos came in there was a cry of welcome and the group closed about him with hearty handshakes and a slap or two on the back.

Now for it, boys," called Warner Humphreys. "Take your partners. No time to

lose.'

They gathered into dancing sets, and Amos took his stand on a meal bin in one corner. He struck up a jingling monotonous tune, calling out the figures with a half veiled show of self-importance, and the dance went forward gaily. Now and then some one would stamp harder on the floor and give a shout, whereat Warner would utter a caution. The girls, too, would giggle aloud in spite of his warnings, and the fun was all the greater that it had to be snatched in silence.

After the Lancers and some round dances there was a pause and the company sat in knots on the floor or climbed into the mows

among the fragrant straw and hay. Amos came down from his perch and helped to hand around the cider and gingerbread. Some one threw a bunch of hay on the heads of those below and for several minutes there was a laughing battle with wild screams from the girls. To hush these Warner clapped his hands and called for a dance. The partners came out on the floor, everyone was in place, and all was ready. But where was Amos? He had utterly disappeared.

They looked for him high and low, called his name down in the cow stable and up the dark lane to the house. He was not to be found, and the dance was at an end without him. His heart would have sunk had he seen the wry faces of the girls and heard their reproaches, for Amos had a touch of rustic gallantry and was quietly pleased with the admiration showered on his unique accomplishment. Never was there so forlorn and disappointed a party in all the annals of stolen pleasure.

"He must be off courtin'," suggested some one with a laugh.

"Who's with him?" asked another, looking from face to face in the dim light.

"Don't know. Who's away. Let's count. Call out the names, Warner, the way they do at school."

Warner stood up where the lantern light streamed from the barn door and mockingly called out the names one by one.

"Jane Bates.'

"Present." The answer came with a prolonged giggle, which ran through the group. Lvdie Penrose."

There was a sound of slow hoofs and wheels in the dark lane, and presently a "falling-top came into the circle of indistinct light. It was Amos with Anne Sloan.

The dancers flocked around them as they got out, and they greeted Amos with goodnatured jeers upon his absence. They were surprised to see Anne. She had never before been to a dance. But they forbore to ask questions where Amos' feelings were so evidently involved.

Presently the dance began anew and went all the merrier for the interruption. Anne sat aside on a low milking stool and enjoyed it with the fearful zest of an interdicted sweet.

She had been persuaded against her convictions and had come in spite of the known punishment due to one fallen from grace. But Amos had pleaded with all the earnestness of an unconfessed lover and had promised that she should go home in time to avoid any unpleasant consequences.

The dance could not, in that quiet farmland, continue very far into the night. Early hours, even if they had not been a rigid tradition, were a necessity to the toilers of the field and dairy. Homely Quaker habits, a seemly temperance in all things, brought the party to its closing Virginia Reel when the household lamps were going out up the village road.

corner.

In this last dance Amos insisted that Anne should take part. She held back, blushed, and ran away with pretty bashfulness into a Amos went up and whispered softly to her. Then, with one arm round her waist and the other holding an unwilling hand, he drew her out. It was not only diffidence which he had to conquer. The lifelong teaching of Sophia Sloan, the unwritten law of generations of severe and inflexible ancestors, were in Anne's disinclination to join the dance.

But Amos could do much; and at last he led her to a place opposite his brother Warner, and climbed to his perch on the meal bin.

"Thee'll learn by watching the rest, Annie. It's easy as shelling peas," he said.

Then he struck up a lively tune and they began, with the increased ardor of the windup.

No one had heard a measured step upon the slope outside, nor saw the great barn-door slowly open. Suddenly there was a new presence in the barn and the dance abruptly ceased. It was Sophia Sloan.

She stood where the lantern light shown full on her gray silk bonnet and drab shawl, and with one hand raised forbade the dance. Her face was set in rigid lines where horror and anger struggled with the repressing influences of her sect.

Anne, thee has disobeyed me and has brought thee people to the dust. Stay not a minute longer in this unhallowed place."

She took her by the arm, and Anne went, with bowed head, unresistingly.

When they were gone the group of dancers seemed by one impulse to awaken from a stony

trance. They moved uneasily without speaking or looking at each other, till at last Warner said:

"What right had she to come down here, anyway?"

There was no answer, but the girls pinned on their hats and the party dissolved in troubled silence.

Outside the barn-door Warner found the Kitchen boy with hands deep in his pockets and astonishment written on every feature of his nut-brown face.

"What's thee doing here?" Come over with Sophia.

66 What for?"

,,

'T' bring back the team. She heard up to our place, Anne'd drove off with Amos, so she asked me to hitch up and bring her down here. I'm goin' home now. Good bye." And in a few minutes his team was rattling down the dark lane.

Benjamin Humphreys had never been a forward or active member of Trimbletown Meeting. He was a member of the Society of Friends in fairly good standing; but he was rather an independent spirit and often uttered his opinions, and his estimates of fellow members with a dangerous frankness. The tap-room at the Briar Rose was the natural clearing-house for all the gossip of that country-side, and Benjamin, who there spoke with a voice of authority, was apt to talk over-freely to indiscriminate hearers. Moreover, he had long been accused of unduly indulging his two sons, and Amos's possession of the violin had become a village scandal.

On the Second-day of the week after the interrupted dance at Warner Humphreys' barn a team was tethered to the white-washed hitching rack of the Briar Rose and three Friends got down at the tap-room door. Two of them wore brown straw hats with wide brims, and drab coats of the shad-belly pattern. They stooped a little as they walked and one carried a bone handled cane. They were old men, but age had not dimmed their eyes nor quite effaced the benevolent shrewdness from their countenances. The third was dressed in farmer's garb and wore a short red beard at his chin.

They went inside and found Benjamin behind the bar.

There was a long pause, then William Bates looked around the room from one to another of the gossiping farmers and drovers, and said: "We would see thee in private, Benjamin. He led them into the front parlor and shut the door. They took seats, the three together, with Benjamin opposite. His bronzed, homely face, with its touch of rough acuteness and his well-knit little body, were a match for the three combined. There was another meditative pause, then Josiah Jones, being the eldest, spoke :

We have come to see thee about thy son Amos, Benjamin. He has offended against the discipline of the Society, and unless he shall speedily mend his ways, thee knows he will be cast out from Meeting.' Benjamin made no answer. He looked straight before him without the least show of apprehending the words.

He has brought an unholy instrument. amongst us, and his sinful example has led others astray. Wilt thou not summon him before us to hear our counsel and to repent of his misdeeds in our presence?

Benjamin rose and went out. Presently he came back with Amos. Josiah turned to the young fellow, who leaned rather defiantly on the centre-table, and addressed him :

They shall receive meet punishment," answered Josiah, unperturbed. Will thee acknowledge thy offence and repent thy ways, Amos? We would deal with thee gently, for thee is young and may make fair amends for thy misconduct."

"What harm is there in a fiddle, anyway? asked Amos, sulkily.

Then Aaron Allen took up the strain and administered a lengthy sermon on the pitfalls which beset the flesh. All things beautiful which are not of nature, he said, were to be looked upon with fear lest they produce in the mind other than the grace desired.

Amos grew impatient under his long and grave rebuke, and broke in abruptly:

No, I won't give up the fiddle, and you can do what you like about it. I mean no harm, none of us do, and if we can't have a little innocent amusement like other folks, we'd better be dead." He started toward the door.