"Yes," said another voice, "I think she is rather a moody person anyway; she won't say a word if she doesn't feel like it."
"'Sh—'sh—here she comes," said another, with the tone and look that told me it was I of whom they were talking.
And so I adjure all youthful and hopeful persons, who have a tendency to be funny, to keep it a profound secret from the world. Indulge in your propensities to any extent in your family circle; keep your immediate relatives, if you like, in convulsions of inextinguishable laughter all the time; but when you mingle in society guard your secret with your life. Never make a joke, and, if necessary, never take one; and by so doing you shall peradventure escape that wrath to come to which I have fallen an innocent victim, and which I doubt not will bring me to an untimely end.—The Independent.
And a few pages from Miss Murfree, who has shown such rare power in her short character sketches.
A BLACKSMITH IN LOVE.
BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK.
The pine-knots flamed and glistened under the great wash-kettle. A tree-toad was persistently calling for rain in the dry distance. The girl, gravely impassive, beat the clothes with the heavy paddle. Her mother shortly ceased to prod the white heaps in the boiling water, and presently took up the thread of her discourse.
"An' 'Vander hev got ter be a mighty suddint man. I hearn tell, when I war down ter M'ria's house ter the quiltin', ez how in that sorter fight an' scrimmage they hed at the mill las' month, he war powerful ill-conducted. Nobody hed thought of hevin' much of a fight—thar hed been jes' a few licks passed atwixt the men thar; but the fust finger ez war laid on this boy, he jes' lit out, an' fit like a catamount. Right an' lef' he lay about him with his fists, an' he drawed his huntin'-knife on some of 'em. The men at the mill war in no wise pleased with him."
"'Pears like ter me ez 'Vander air a peaceable boy enough, ef he ain't jawed at an' air lef' be," drawled Cynthia.