THE STORY OF THE LITTLE SISTER.

When I first knew her she was a very little girl in a white dress—starched very stiff—and she might have reminded me of Molly in the diverting story of Sir Charles Danvers.

I was devoted to her sister and I remember her galumphing into the room at a most inopportune time, and staring for a moment with eyes very wide open. Then she ran away and I heard her outside giggling quietly all by herself.

When the big sister went away for the summer I went out to the house to tell her good-by. The great trunk stood in the hall waiting for Charlie Miller’s man. Seated on top of this was the little sister with two round bottles held close to her eyes. She said she was playing theater, and that the bottles made a lovely opera glass.

I asked her what the play was and she said about a pretty lady who was pursued by lions and dragons and things. Then there was a man—a big, nice man—who came with guns and swords and spears and killed all the dragons and lions and then he married the pretty lady.

This was her imagination.

Then I went away—I forget where—and was gone many years. I came back to be best man at the wedding of my cousin Anthony. I found that the little sister was to be the maid of honor, and at the various functions before the wedding I saw much of her.

After the ceremony we walked down the aisle together, and as she took my arm her hand trembled. When we reached the entrance I turned and looked square into her glorious eyes. They told me many things that I was glad to know.

Now—after a year—I am trying to live up to the ideal man she imagined me to be.

And that’s what makes it hard.

H. P. T.

Many of the newspapers which have noticed The Philistine have expressed their inability to find East Aurora on the map. All the map makers are hereby authorized to print a large red ring around the name of the home of The Philistine hereafter, but for the benefit of those who pine for immediate knowledge, I clip the following from Bradstreet’s:

East Aurora, Erie Co., pop. 2000, 1880. Bank 1, newspapers 2, Am. Ex., W. N. Y. & P. R. R., 17 miles fr. Buffalo. Headquarters Cloverfield combination of cheese factories. Home of Mambrino King.* Product: ginger.

THE BLUFF.

DRAWING BY PLUG HAZEN-PLUG.