fervently, "and remembers its green hills covered with
apricot and almond trees, and the cold water that rushes

down like a caress from the upland snows and dashes under
the little wooden bridges, no one who remembers these

things and treasures the memory of them would ever give
up a single one of its unwritten laws and customs. To me

they are as binding as though I still lived in that
hallowed home of my youth."

"Then if I was to ask you for a small loan - " began
the greybeard fawningly, edging nearer on the seat and

hurriedly wondering how large he might safely make his
request, "if I was to ask you for, say - "

"At any other time, certainly," said Crosby; "in the
months of November and December, however, it is

absolutely forbidden for anyone of our race to give or
receive loans or gifts; in fact, one does not willingly

speak of them. It is considered unlucky. We will
therefore close this discussion."

"But it is still October!" exclaimed the adventurer
with an eager, angry whine, as Crosby rose from his seat;

"wants eight days to the end of the month!"
"The Afghan November began yesterday," said Crosby

severely, and in another moment he was striding across
the Park, leaving his recent companion scowling and

muttering furiously" target="_blank" title="ad.狂怒地；有力地">furiously on the seat.
"I don't believe a word of his story," he chattered

to himself; "pack of nasty lies from beginning to end.
Wish I'd told him so to his face. Calling himself an

Afghan!"
The snorts and snarls that escaped from him for the

next quarter of an hour went far to support the truth of
the old saying that two of a trade never agree.

THE SCHARTZ-METTERKLUME METHOD
LADY CARLOTTA stepped out on to the platform of the

small wayside station and took a turn or two up and down
its uninteresting length, to kill time till the train

should be pleased to proceed on its way. Then, in the
roadway beyond, she saw a horse struggling with a more

than ample load, and a carter of the sort that seems to
bear a sullenhatred against the animal that helps him to

earn a living. Lady Carlotta promptly betook her to the
roadway, and put rather a different complexion on the

struggle. Certain of her acquaintances were wont to give
her plentiful admonition as to the undesirability of

interfering on behalf of a distressed animal, such
interference being "none of her business." Only once had

she put the doctrine of non-interference into practice,
when one of its most eloquent exponents had been besieged

for nearly three hours in a small and extremely
uncomfortable may-tree by an angry boar-pig, while Lady

Carlotta, on the other side of the fence, had proceeded
with the water-colour sketch she was engaged on, and

refused to interfere between the boar and his prisoner.
It is to be feared that she lost the friendship of the

ultimately rescued lady. On this occasion she merely
lost the train, which gave way to the first sign of

impatience it had shown throughout the journey, and
steamed off without her. She bore the desertion with

philosophical indifference; her friends and relations
were thoroughly well used to the fact of her luggage

arriving without her. She wired a vague non-committal
message to her destination to say that she was coming on

"by another train." Before she had time to think what
her next move might be she was confronted by an

imposingly attired lady, who seemed to be taking a
prolonged mental inventory of her clothes and looks.

"You must be Miss Hope, the governess I've come to
meet," said the apparition, in a tone that admitted of

very little argument.
"Very well, if I must I must," said Lady Carlotta to

herself with dangerous meekness.
"I am Mrs. Quabarl," continued the lady; "and where,

pray, is your luggage?"
"It's gone astray," said the alleged governess,

falling in with the excellent rule of life that the
absent are always to blame; the luggage had, in point of

fact, behaved with perfect correctitude. "I've just
telegraphed about it," she added, with a nearer approach

to truth.
"How provoking," said Mrs. Quabarl; "these railway

companies are so careless. However, my maid can lend you
things for the night," and she led the way to her car.

During the drive to the Quabarl mansion Lady
Carlotta was impressively introduced to the nature of the

charge that had been thrust upon her; she learned that
Claude and Wilfrid were delicate, sensitive young people,

that Irene had the artistictemperament highly developed,
and that Viola was something or other else of a mould

equally commonplace among children of that class and type
in the twentieth century.

"I wish them not only to be TAUGHT," said Mrs.
Quabarl, "but INTERESTED in what they learn. In their

history lessons, for instance, you must try to make them
feel that they are being introduced to the life-stories

of men and women who really lived, not merely committing
a mass of names and dates to memory. French, of course,

I shall expect you to talk at meal-times several days in
the week."

"I shall talk French four days of the week and
Russian in the remaining three."

"Russian? My dear Miss Hope, no one in the house
speaks or understands Russian."

"That will not embarrass me in the least," said Lady
Carlotta coldly.

Mrs. Quabarl, to use a colloquial expression, was
knocked off her perch. She was one of those imperfectly

self-assured individuals who are magnificent and
autocratic as long as they are not seriously opposed.

The least show of unexpectedresistance goes a long way
towards rendering them cowed and apologetic. When the

new governess failed to express wondering admiration of
the large newly-purchased and expensive car, and lightly

alluded to the superior advantages of one or two makes
which had just been put on the market, the discomfiture

of her patroness became almost abject. Her feelings were
those which might have animated a general of ancient

warfaring days, on beholding his heaviest battle-elephant
ignominiously driven off the field by slingers and

javelin throwers.
At dinner that evening, although reinforced by her

husband, who usually duplicated her opinions and lent her
moral support generally, Mrs. Quabarl regained none of

her lost ground. The governess not only helped herself
well and truly to wine, but held forth with considerable

show of critical knowledge on various vintage matters,
concerning which the Quabarls were in no wise able to

pose as authorities. Previous governesses had limited
their conversation on the wine topic to a respectful and

doubtless sincere expression of a preference for water.
When this one went as far as to recommend a wine firm in

whose hands you could not go very far wrong Mrs. Quabarl
thought it time to turn the conversation into more usual