china with its decorations of dark blue; enormous platters of all wares and designs; tureens with conventionalized red rabbit heads for handles; cups and saucers; glass ware,-everything, even a patriotic brown teapot with the motto "No Stamp Act!" Tradition says the bricks of which the house was built were brought from England, and much of the furniture, such as high-posted bedsteads and brass mounted book cases, might easily be imagined to have kept them company. But a description which confines itself to the merely physical aspect of Sandy Spring would do it but scanty justice. I dare say there is not in the Union, a country neighborhood which equals this in culture and refinement, and by few cities is it surpassed. Wealth is, of course, impossible, where the farmer has to struggle with such poor land; but economy easily obtains comfort. The advantages derived from comparing notes on farming, and the pleasure of meeting in a social way, led the farmers to form a club, which should meet at the homes of its members in regular succession. The success of this association, which has been in existence now for nearly fifty years, led to the formation of others. The wives of these same gentlemen, being shut out from the meetings of the Club, organized one for themselves, and shut out the men as rigorously as they themselves had been excluded. In due time, two more Farmers' Clubs were formed; and then a Home Interest Society, including both husbands and wives. The younger people have a Sociable, in which conversation and literature are judiciously mingled; while a Musical, which in summer becomes an Archery Club, is of later growth. The Benevolent Aid Society provides for the needy; a branch of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and a Band of Hope agitate the temperance question; while a flourishing Grange professes to look after the interests of husbandry. Other names might be added to this list were it not already long enough. Given, besides all these, a large number of dinners, teas, and evening companies, and you will have fully as much as any set of peo

ple, however active, can possibly accomplish. Some of the Sandy Springers think seriously of petitioning the Legislature to add another day to the week, so that everything may be done properly. The relationships are most puzzling to a stranger, and even some of the natives get mixed on that point; but one who thoroughly understands the subject, told me that two or three more marriages would complete the circuit, and make every one related to everybody else.

The whole neighborhood seems like one large family, such are the ease and good will which prevail. Strangers are taken in at once, and after the first visit they always feel that there is one homelike spot in the world, if all others prove unfriendly.

Editors' Table.

The new Board makes its most polite bow to the public and proceeds to do its best.

The enthusiasm of a Vassar audience is something unparalleled. Nothing like it can be found or has ever been heard of except in a gathering of small boys. It is a humiliating statement to make, but none the less true. Without doubt, however, every student from Senior to Prep. will rise up in righteous indignation at this statement and declare that it is no such thing. Now enthusiasm, like all other good things, is excellent in moderation; but, in excess, it loses all the good it might ever have possessed. It is very flattering and encour aging to any performer, whether speaker or musician, to see before him an appreciative audience; but what must his sensations be when the enthusiasm reaches a point where it finds no limit? It is almost too much to expect a paid artist to respond to limitless recalls, and it is certainly unkind to require any one who is entertaining us out of pure courtesy to give us three times as much of his talent as he intended. We had a striking illustration of this boundless enthusiasm in our late impromptu concert. At first, the applause was the spontane ous expression of pleasure; but, when encore was followed by encore, it became tedious. Not only did the whole body of spec

tators seem impelled to applaud every encore to the echo, but they must need applaud every action of any one who aided in the entertainment. Now is it not almost too much to expect that anybody is going to be pleased if an audience, presumably intelligent and sympathetic, insanely claps his every motion? As long as applause retains its present meaning, being an expression of the pleasure and approval of an audience for the gratification of the performer, let it cease when the purpose has been accomplished. We would not wish to discourage enthusiasm in the least. Far from it. But do let us express our enthusiastic applause with some regard for the feelings of its recipient, and above all, as ladies, not as hoydens.

We sincerely hope that the rumor which is going about the college, to the effect that the faculty contemplate changing our weekly holiday from Saturday to Monday, is unfounded. Wellesley has already made this radical innovation on a time-honored custom; but we think this is a point wherein Vassar may advantageously live up to her reputation for conservatism. Wellesley did it on the double plea that her crowds of Saturday visitors from Harvard were so great as to seriously interfere with the work which must have its place in even the holiday of an earnest student, and that the alteration would lessen the temptation to Sunday study. In the existing state of Poughkeepsie society, the first of these arguments has no force at Vassar, and we think the force of the second is, greatly over-estimated. "Keeping Sunday" is a matter too personal to be regulated by law-legislation on the subject, in State or family, always fails. If the college sentiment is against Sunday study (and we believe it is) college sentiment will tell. If the sentiment of the college is not in favor of observing Sunday as a day of abstinence from ordinary pursuits and amusements, still, the only effect of the

change in holiday would be to increase in us that tendency to put things off till the last miuute which used to make "Monday morning Silent Time" the synonym for a frantic struggle with untouched lessons. We do not believe it would in any way make Sunday a more helpful or restful day to us, but the contrary. The busiest of us gets on Saturday, at least that partial rest which comes from change of work, and the substitution of essay or critique for note-book and crayon helps to fit her for the more perfect rest of the next day. The Saturday holiday gives us an opportunity to fasten the loose threads of the week; to go back along our path and pick up the odds and ends of fact and theory which have slipped from our laden memories. If the holiday is changed, and we are forced to carry the burden of the college working week up to 9.35 Saturday night, which one of us has strength of mind and force of will sufficient to enable her to throw off then the sense of unfinished work, and rest as she ought to rest till Monday morning? Which one of us would be willing to carry with her into Sunday morning chapel, the list of minor duties-letters to write, dresses to mend, subjects to be looked up-which Friday night stamps on our brains, and which it is the business of our holiday to check off one by one? Yet who could leave them outside the door, if Saturday and Monday change places ?

On other grounds, too, we must own, we object. The change would strike at one of the strongest associations of our student life. Saturday afternoon is always longer, sunnier than any other, to our thinking. It is so even when the shade of the catacombs falls upon it, and the flapping of much essay paper cannot chill it wholly, for the source of its light and warmth lics beyond their reach, away back in our childhood. No one can make us believe that a mere faculty decree could change Monday into Saturday. We could believe in transubstantiation sooner! Saturday cannot be defined as a day minus recitations and bells. The difference between it and other holidays