shadow in the corner. It had not moved during the contest, and did not show any interest now in the result.

"Gewhilliky crickets! Thunder and lightning! Licked him all to smash!" said Bud, rubbing his hands on his knees. "That beats my time all holler!"

And Betsey Short giggled until her tuck-comb fell out, though she was on the defeated side.

Shocky got up and danced with pleasure.

But one suffocating look from the aqueous eyes of Mirandy destroyed the last spark of Ralph's pleasure in his triumph, and sent that awful below-zero feeling all through him.

"He's powerful smart, is the master," said old Jack to Mr. Pete Jones. "He'll beat the whole kit and tuck of 'em afore he's through. I know'd he was smart. That's the reason I tuck him," proceeded Mr. Means.

"Yaas, but he don't lick enough. Not nigh," answered Pete Jones. "No lickin', no larnin', says I."

It was now not so hard. The other spellers on the opposite side went down quickly under the hard words which the Squire gave out. The master had mowed down all but a few, his opponents had given up the battle, and all had lost their keen interest in a contest to which there could be but one conclusion, for there were only the poor spellers left. But Ralph Hartsook ran against a stump where he was least expecting it. It was the Squire's custom, when one of the smaller scholars or poorer spellers rose to spell against the master, to give out eight or ten easy words, that they might have some breathing-spell before being slaughtered, and then to give a poser or two, which soon settled them. He let them run a little, as a cat does a doomed mouse. There was now but one person left on the opposite side, and as she rose in her blue calico dress, Ralph recognized Hannah, the bound girl at old Jack

As

Means's. She had not attended school in the district, and had never spelled in spelling-school before, and was chosen last as an uncertain quantity. The Squire began with easy words of two syllables, from that page of Webster so well known to all who ever thumbed it as 66 Baker," from the word that stands at the top of the page. She spelled these words in an absent and uninterested manner. everybody knew that she would have to go down as soon as this preliminary skirmishing was over, everybody began to get ready to go home, and already there was the buzz of preparation. Young men were timidly asking girls if "they could see them safe home," which is the approved formula, and were trembling in mortal fear of "the mitten." Presently the Squire, thinking it time to close the contest, pulled his scalp forward, adjusted his glass eye, which had been examining his nose long enough, and turned over the leaves of the book to the great words at the place known to spellers as " Incomprehensibility," and began to give out those "words of eight syllables with the accent on the sixth." Listless scholars now turned round, and ceased to whisper, in order to be in at the master's final triumph. But, to their surprise, "ole Miss Meanses' white nigger," as some of them called her, in allusion to her slavish life, spelled these great words with as perfect ease as the master. Still, not doubting the result, the Squire turned from place to place and selected all the hard words he could find. The school became utterly quiet; the excitement was too great for the ordinary buzz. Would "Meanses' Hanner" beat the master? Beat the master that had laid out Jim Phillips? Everybody's sympathy was now turned to Hannah. Ralph noticed that even Shocky had deserted him, and that his face grew brilliant every time Hannah spelled a word. In fact, Ralph deserted himself. As he saw the fine, timid

face of the girl so long oppressed flush and shine with interest, as he looked at the rather low but broad and intelligent brow and the fresh, white complexion, and saw the rich, womanly nature coming to the surface under the influence of applause and sympathy, he did not want to beat. 'If he had not felt that a victory given would insult her, he would have missed intentionally. The bull-dog, the stern, relentless setting of the will, had gone, he knew not whither. And there had come in its place, as he looked in that face, a something which he did not understand. You did not, gentle reader, the first time it came to you.

The Squire was puzzled. He had given out all the hard words in the book. He again pulled the top of his head forward. Then he wiped his spectacles and put them on. Then out of the depths of his pocket he fished up a list of words just coming into use in those days,—words not in the spelling-book. He regarded the paper attentively with his blue right eye. His black left eye meanwhile fixed itself in such a stare on Mirandy Means that she shuddered and hid her eyes in her red silk handkerchief. Daguerreotype," sniffled the Squire. It was Ralph's

turn.

D-a-u, dau

"Next."

And Hannah spelled it right.

Such a buzz followed that Betsey Short's giggle could not be heard, but Shocky shouted, "Hanner beat! my Hanner spelled down the master!" And Ralph went over and congratulated her.

And Dr. Small sat perfectly still in the corner.

And then the Squire called them to order, and said, As our friend Hanner Thomson is the only one left on her side, she will have to spell against nearly all on t'other side. I shall, therefore, take the liberty of procrastinating

the completion of this interesting and exacting contest until to-morrow evening. I hope our friend Hanner may again carry off the cypress crown of glory. There is nothing better for us than heathful and kindly simulation."

Dr. Small, who knew the road to practice, escorted Mirandy, and Bud went home with somebody else. The others of the Means family hurried on, while Hannah, the champion, stayed behind a minute to speak to Shocky. Perhaps it was because Ralph saw that Hannah must go alone that he suddenly remembered having left something which was of no consequence, and resolved to go round by Mr. Means's and get it. Another of Cupid's disguises.

A NEWPORT ROMANCE.

BRET HARTE.

THEY say that she died of a broken heart
(I tell the tale as 'twas told to me);
But her spirit lives, and her soul is part
Of this sad old house by the sea.

Her lover was fickle and fine and French :
It was nearly a hundred years ago

When he sailed away from her arms-poor wench!—
With the Admiral Rochambeau.

I marvel much what periwigged phrase
Won the heart of this sentimental Quaker,

At what golden-laced speech of those modish days
She listened,-the mischief take her!

But she kept the posies of mignonette

That he gave; and ever as their bloom failed And faded (though with her tears still wet) Her youth with their own exhaled.

Till one night, when the sea-fog wrapped a shroud Round spar and spire and tarn and tree,

Her soul went up on that lifted cloud

From this sad old house by the sea.

And ever since then, when the clock strikes two,
She walks unbidden from room to room,
And the air is filled, as she passes through,
With a subtle, sad perfume.

The delicate odor of mignonette,
The ghost of a dead and gone bouquet,
Is all that tells of her story; yet

Could she think of a sweeter way?

I sit in the sad old house to-night,—

Myself a ghost from a farther sea,—

And I trust that this Quaker woman might,
In courtesy, visit me.

For the laugh is fled from porch and lawn,

And the bugle died from the fort on the hill, And the twitter of girls on the stairs is gone, And the grand piano is still.

Somewhere in the darkness a clock strikes two;
And there is no sound in the sad old house
But the long veranda dripping with dew,
And in the wainscot a mouse.