which is sent free on application to the Publishers, there are found dozens of the best things in the World, which are well worth committing to memory; and they who know most of such good things, and appreciate and enjoy them most, are really among the best educated people in any country. They have the best result of Education. For above Contents, with sample pages of Music, address
Harper & Brothers, New York.
PRIZE-STORY COMPETITION.
SECOND-PRIZE STORY.
An Exciting Game. By Nancy Howe Wood.
It was when I was a struggling young physician in a small country town that I passed through an adventure which I would not care to repeat, although now I can plainly see its humorous aspect.
I had but shortly before graduated from a medical college, and was trying hard to get my living in a little village where there were two other older and more experienced doctors. I was becoming greatly disheartened, when one day, on my return from a visit to a poor woman of the village, I found an official-looking letter awaiting me. I opened it with some degree of excitement, and was astonished to find that it was an offer to me of the position of resident physician in the Blankville Insane Asylum, situated about two miles away. A salary was named which seemed a fortune to me, poverty-stricken as I then was. (I afterwards learned that the offer was made to me through the efforts of an influential friend.)
At first the letter gave me unlimited joy, and I shouted like a school-boy; but when I began to think what it would actually mean my heart sank. All my life I had had a nervous horror of insane persons, and if I should accept this offer I would be obliged to stay with them, eat with them, and live among them almost as one of themselves. At this thought I fairly shuddered, and was forced to confess to myself that I could never endure such a strain on my nerves, doctor though I was.