The O'Mars retired discomfited.

The smallest O' Mar even burst into tears as he entered the house. "What be ye snawtherin' and cryin' for?" demanded his father, who awaited in tipped-back chair the serving of the boiled potatoes which formed their daily dinner. As he listened to the tale of the wondrous goose, a crafty smile stole into his deep-set eyes.

"Niver ye mind thim," said he, nodding his head. "I'll see that my brats gets as grand a Christmas dinner as any Murray or whativer. Niver ye mind thim," and the front legs of his chair struck the floor with energy as he tipped forward and fell to.

ON Christmas morning the time between breakfast and dinner scarcely seemed long to the Murrays, so delicious were the delays of preparation.

The children could not be separated from the goose. They followed it from its hook in the lean-to, where it had been hanging for a couple of days plucked and cleaned, through the mysteries of stuffing and skewering, and placing in the bake-pan. Then the bake-pan was set in the ashes of the great fireplace, and live coals were piled between its legs and on its lid. On the iron crane hung the pot in which the potatoes and turnips were presently to seethe their lives away to keep it company. All would be well if the children could be induced to pay the goose less attention. One by one they slipped the poker into the handle of the lid, and lifted it, coals and all, to peer into the recesses of the pan. "I'm only seein' if it ain't 'most done," said Janet, the eldest girl, with an injured sniff as her mother rebuked her third investigation. "Don't you want me to help?"

Helped or hindered, the goose proceeded on its way to perfection. The most luscious aroma arose from it and scented the whole room as Mrs. Peter at last assisted it from the pan to the great platter. The table, which had been pretending it was nothing but a chest of drawers all the morning, now admitted the ultimate end of its being, and upheld great store of good things. Plates piled high with bread of rye and creamy, homeraised wheat, a smoking heap of potatoes and turnips, three pumpkin pies, and vast provision of crullers, left scarcely room for the guest of honor at the head of the table. How proudly Mrs. Peter bore it to its place, the children dancing about her, and "taking their first mouthfuls with their eyes," she said, laughing! Her husband proceeded to a solemn sharpening of the great knife, when the door suddenly and quietly opened.

On the threshold stood John O'Mar; behind him, his wife; behind her, his big boy John, junior, and Thomas, almost as old as he; and behind them in turn, Jimmy, and Richie, and Mary, and Maggie, and Archie, and Patrick-in short, all the little O'Mars.

Peter Murray laid down the knife, and stared as one who sees ghosts. For two years neither John O'Mar, nor his wife, nor one of his children, had set foot in his house.

John O'Mar stepped in unconcernedly, stamped the snow off his heavy boots, walked over to the fire, and warmed his hands. So did his wife. So did his two tall sons, and his four small sons, and his two little girls. The room was full of O'Mars.

Astonishment deprived the Murrays of speech. Whether the O'Mars were waiting for a neighborly greeting, or an inquiry concerning the reason of their

advent, never appeared, for, not being spoken to, neither did they speak. Each took a splint-bottomed chair and sat down. They lined the walls of the little room.

Now indeed was Peter Murray in dismay. His family was outnumbered by O'Mar's larger and stronger one. If he ordered them out, he and his own small boy were no match for powerful John O'Mar and his two large boys and all his small ones. Furthermore, little as was the love between them, and impudent as their intrusion might be, it was contrary to all the hospitable traditions of that thinly settled country to turn a man and his family out of one's house-neighbors, too, and coming in quietly and peaceably. The simplest way out of the dilemma was to ignore them entirely, and that Peter determined to do.

A glance at his wife and a wave of the hand to his children directed them to take their places at the table, while he went on carving. The chairs were in possession of the O'Mars, so they could not sit down. But each Murray stood at his post with silent and splendid determination.

At last the goose was carved, and Peter Murray began to distribute it among his children.

Then up rose John O'Mar and all his family with him and surrounded the small table, bringing their chairs with them. It made close quarters for the little Murrays. Davy's knees were so sharply squeezed between two of the O'Mar chairs that he extricated himself with difficulty, making a wry mouth that would have emitted a powerful protest but for the prevailing silence. The hot blood rushed into Murray's face, but he finished helping his family, and took up his own knife and fork.

John O'Mar reached out his hand, grasped the carving-knife and -fork his host had let fall, and helped his own family in their turn. Little Patrick fell heir to a leg, Mary to a wing, and the rest had choice cuts of the breast. It was wonderful how the richness held out. The little teeth cut into the delicious meat with a fervor akin to ecstasy, and a great smacking of lips ensued.

It was more than Peter Murray could bear. He tried in vain to eat. Pushing away his almost untasted food, without a word he backed out as literally as little Davy had done, and his wife and daughters followed his example. The O'Mars remained in possession of the table.

Never in their lives had the O'Mars enjoyed such a dinner. They finished the goose to the last morsel, and picked the bones with relish. They made short work of the crullers, and the "pies did go like the djew before the sun," Peter Murray said, telling the tale afterward. When they had cleared the table, they rose, and, always in the same silence and good order, walked out of the door, and tramped homeward in single file through the snow.

TRADITION is obstinately silent as to the sequel. Whether the Murrays gave up the unequal fight and moved away, whether some common calamity or spiritual stress softened all hearts and made reconciliation possible, or whether the feud passed down through two or three generations till it formed a background for the loves of some provincial Romeo and Juliet, it is impossible to know, and the chronicler declines to invent.

Grace Wilbur Conant.

The Penitent.

MARIE had some beauty, but less beauty than charm-charm which when analyzed was found to be laughter, indifference, caprice, sympathy, disdain, sweetness, cruelty, and other qualities peculiarly feminine in combination. If any desirable ones were lacking, their places were filled by vanity and coquetry, which may, unwittingly, assume all disguises, even that of conscience itself. She had been born with a genius to charm. She knew it; she gloried in it and cultivated it unweariedly. For, being gifted with this siren power, she was enabled to revel in the passion of her soul — flirtation. She had flirted enthusiastically since her coming out, and before. She had broken many hearts. Her power increased with years. So time went by. But one spring she fell ill- so ill that she came near dying. She did not die, but she came back to life awed and cowed out of likeness to herself. During her illness she had frightful visions. In her early convalescence they haunted her, and she wondered if they might not have been an earnest of the future of the unregenerate. Everything seemed to have a gloomy significance. She looked at the flowers on her table, and shrank from them, saying to herself, “These might have been lying on my coffin!" Then the clergyman came, preaching the vanity of all things, and trying to convince her that since her life had been spared, it had been spared for repentance. So in her own way she repented. She resolved that she would never flirt again. She had an aunt who lived a half-day's journey distant, in a land hemmed in by marsh, woods, and water. Her aunt's place was called "Plain Dealing," and she remembered well the old brick house with its moss and mildew, the broad lawn, the avenue of hundred-yearold catalpas, the roses and the river with the woods behind it. She had been there as a child, and now, because it was just the place for convalescing, she went again as a woman.

Down there in that world-forgotten spot time brings few changes except additional moss, mildew, and gray hairs. Therefore she found all the remembered things and people about as she had left them. But she found something- some one besides. This was the nephew of her aunt's late husband, who was carrying on the farm. His name was Allan Ward. He was an openhearted, gentle-mannered fellow of about her own age, but with little experience. He knew nothing of women (except his aunt), but he reverenced them as superior beings who, in their youth, resembled angels. He welcomed Marie with frank pleasure.

But she took his welcome with mixed feelings. She had resolved never to flirt again. But was she not still charming? Might she not do harm unwittingly? Before she took off her hat to sit down to supper she had decided on her course: she would look as ugly as she could (almost any woman can look ugly if she will); she would be as disagreeable as she could (and almost any woman can also be disagreeable); and she would wear her oldest gowns. In short, she would do all that a woman can do (but which few have done) to keep a man from falling in love with her. The enthusiasm of honorable intention brought to her lips almost the first smile of her convalescence.

And she did all that she meant to do, seriously, religiously; but alas! before two days were gone she sus

pected that her efforts were in vain—that Allan's heart was caught in the fatal current. She sighed; she knew the signs. After another day or two there was no mistaking his eyes, his stammering tongue, his little selfconscious gallantries. Was it that her charm penetrated its disguise? Was it propinquity? At any rate, it was. But she was not discouraged. If love could not be forestalled, it might be nipped.

The country is very sweet in May, when the air is laden with the perfumes of roses, honeysuckle, and many other flowers; and very mysterious when, in the twilight, bats gyrate against an orange sky, and at night the breeze brings plaintive melodies from a negro village across the water. If mutual love were joined to this! But here was no question of mutual love. As the days went by, and one-sided love sank from depth to depth, and its tormentor gained in health and courage, fresh means were taken to subdue it. Marie snubbed her lover informally and inconsequently; she laughed at the things he held sacred; she affected heartlessness and worldliness. She excused herself as a surgeon excuses himself.

But his devotion never waned. He brought her roses wet with dew, and early strawberries in lettuce-leaves, and during the chilly blackberry rain,— that long rain which brings the blackberry-blossoms into bloom, making the roadsides and ditch-banks look as though they lay under a light fall of snow,-when she had to stay in the house, he got down on his knees on the hearth, and blew her fire until he was red in the face. He endured her snubbings silently; he seemed to expect no reward. It may be that love was enough in itself. Later, when she was strong enough, he took her rowing on the river, walking in the pine-woods, and riding and driving.

Gradually her health and spirits came back. Once more the world felt solid underfoot. Her illness lay behind her, and its gloomy aftermath had vanished like a mist before the sun. With the languor of her body the languor of her spirit had departed. Yet she clung to her old rôle. She played it now, not with regret, but with enthusiasm.

The weeks went by. The roses bloomed, and ceased to bloom, and the poppies spread their gaudy banners to the sky. It was June. Her girl friends began to write about summer gowns and house-parties. She grew restless. She fixed a day for her departure. She told Allan that she was going, and he looked at her with great, sad eyes. She had watched the progress of his passion from the contented stage to the humble stage, from the humble stage to the restless stage, he was of such a gentle temper that he skipped the savage stage,- and, being self-consciously hopeless, it was not her fault if he was not, from rose to ashes of rose. One day he had seemed about to tell her of it, but she cut him short, and left him. After this she avoided him; she kept her room, but sometimes saw him through the half-closed blinds wandering about aimlessly, or picking flowers which she knew were meant for her, but which he, being greatly changed in these weeks, had not the courage to present to her.

From this he passed on to the apparently indifferent stage. This stage is of two kinds, the philosophical and the explosive. Marie anticipated the latter, which is fatal, and decided that, after all, it would be best that he should have an opportunity to speak of his