THE VICISSITUDES OF A FAMILY WITH IDEAS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2481, 17 May 1909, Page 2

THE VICISSITUDES OF A FAMILY WITH IDEAS.

(By Grace Ellery Channing.)

The 'Doctor always insisted that the crowning blessing of his life in Lhesterviille—a life otherwise well furnished with the minor beatitudes of a comfortable practice and a more than comfortable home—was that this latter, in the providence of things, adjoined the homestead of the Hannay family. He declared they formed his theatre and his skating-rink, his baseball and his grand opera, and that the best of it was that one could never foresee which would occur next, thus add ing zest to the expectation. The Doctor’s wife shared his view, with certain feminine reservations. As for the neighborhood at large, it considered Mrs Hannay “advanced,” but conceded that she kept things stirred up. ‘ At the time the Doctor and his wife made the Hannay acquaintance that family was engaged in living the simpler life —a perfectly unoriginal performance, but into which they managed to instil origina!ity,i differentiating it from that of all the other “simple lifers” the Doctor had, in somewhat monotonous succession, encountered, by the energy with which they lived it. If the neighbors were to ,be believed, it was the only kind of life they had not yet experimentally exhausted. On their first call the Lansings found Mrs Hannay, who was no fairy, light!v attired in a species of gingham jumper and! brief petticoat of the same, seated on the greensward beneath spreading apple trees, with a pile of books beside her. “Sit right down on the grass,” she greeted them cordially, “it’ll do you good. It s the only way to get the real magnetism of the earth; I’ve given up chairs altogether.” And the Doctor’s wife, with a secret pang for her best mohair skirt (moreover, she was mortally afraid of caterpillars), obeyed. The Doctor, most adaptable of men, had already cast himself down upon the hummocky ground, with the air of its being a preferred attitude, and was making advances to a group of children hanging slightly—hut very slightly—in the background. Their pose suggested less timidity than a shrewd desire to pronounce upon the newcomers before committing themselves. There were seven of them, all surprisingly of a size and indeterminate as to sex, being all clad alike in sleeveless sweaters and racing knickerbockers. The Doctor s wife eyed them with the hunger of a childless woman. “Are they all yours? she asked. “Every one of them,” replied their hostess promptly. “And none too many, either; I believe in large families. Henry James, come and shake hands. He s the eldest,” she explained, as the fractionally largest of the blond-headed, blue-eyed and freckle-faced company came cheerfully forward and extended a firm and tanned little fist to bo shaken. “William Dean,” she beckoned up the next. “His full name is William Dean Howells Hannay. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.” she summoned a third. “Mary Wilkins, Sammy, Ruddy, Marcella, come here ! Their full names arc Samuel Clemens, Rudyard Kipling and Marcella Humphry Ward,” she proffered, as the last three lined up before the visitors. „ "What —unusual names ! gasped the Doctor’s wife, wildly struggling for comnosure and to avoid the Doctors e\e. ‘ “Well, they’re pretty well known to us all.” said Mrs' Hannay complacently. "1 believe in the influence of names, and I made up mv mind to give them each one they’d have' to live up to or be ashamed of themselves. I never did see the sense of naming children after their_ relatives, when their relativs were nothing to be proud of. And I believe in taking the names of people who are doing something right now, instead of going way back to the Dark Ages and Napoleon Bonaparte. I never did have much opinion of military men, and I think a good deal more of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps than 1 do of Queen Elizabeth.” “Haven’t you discriminated' heavily in favor of fiction?’ asked the Doctor, peiceiving his wife past speech. “Well —at that time it was what I cared most for,” confessed Mrs Hannay. ••We’re not an artistic family; on the other hand, I’ve always been a great reader. If they’d been born now, she added, with what the Doctor could not but feel to be a tinge of regret, "1 think probably I’d have named them for scientists; I’m turning my attention mostly to science these days.” Her glance fell momentarily upon the pile of hooxs. i did regret,’’’ she continued, “going outside the country tor the last two, but 1 couldn’t seem to help it. Rudyard was easy, but Marcella gave me a lot ot trouble. I’m an admirer of Mrs Humphry Ward, hut llump\wv’s- not a girl’s name, and 1 wouldn’t call one of the hoys by it, for it isn’t Humphry Ward that writes hut Mrs Humphry Ward, and I commit call a child Mrs Humphry Ward, cither. If she’s got a name of her own 1 never heard of it. She came pretty near not having any one named after her, but finally I decided I’d just take one of her best-known characters and call her Marcella Humphry, as the nearest I could come. If she’d been born some years later I could have called her Eleanor or Diana” —and again the Doctor fancied a detected regret in the speaker’s tone. It occurred with fatal simultaiieousness to both him and his wife that Diana would have been weirdly appropriate for the slim, sexless child ivho eyed them unabashed. The Doctor saved the situation. He had been running a professional eye, the eye of a child-lover, over the brood, and he spoke with hearty satisfaction. “Well, by any name, they’re a credit to you. I don’t know when I’ve seen such a set of straight backs and legs, clear eyes and rosy checks.” Their‘mother surveyed them rummatingly without a trace of maternal pride. “It’s a wonder to me they’re not every last one of them in their graves,” she said gloomily. . The Doctor’s wife was horrified. “Mercy! Mrs Hannay, why do you say such a dreadful thing?” ... “Because cf the way we’ve been living , up to a month ago,” answered Mrs Hannay unmoved. “How did you live?” The Doctor began to enjoy himself. “Like everybody else,” said Mrs Hannay briefly. “Just as you’re living, probably”—she turned an implicating eye on Mrs Lansing—‘‘spendin’ one-half our human time preparin’ food and eatin’ food, and the other half of it cleanin’ up after food and gettin’ over what we’d eaten sacrificin’ the innocent animals, and fillin’ up our, systems -with goodness sakes alone knows what poison” —when wrought up, Mrs Hannay, like the British aristocracy, dropped her g’s—"actin’ more like the beasts of the fields ourselves than like reasonin’ bein’s with minds.’ “And now?” The Doctor’s tone was rich with enjoyment. . “You can see for yourselves. Their hostess, glanced triumphantly about. ‘‘We’re livin’ close to Nature —like reasonin' bein’s. We began with simple vegetarianism, and at first we_ ate and eggs, but now we’re just pickin’ up what we want from the garden, as Nature intended we should; there are all the summer fruits and vegetables, and by and bye there’ll be apples and nuts. I suppose you know,” she addressed the Doctor more particularly, “that statistics show the vegetarian heart don't work a third so hard as the carnivorous one? which means prolongin’ your life just three times, sayin’ nothing of the poor animals. As for clothin’, we're wearin’ nothing but wool and cotton. I can’t see that wool’s any worse than cotton, myself ; it don’t hurt the sheep to shear it; and we’re sleepin’ out. We’ve nothing to do,” she added with another glance of unconcealed triumph, “except cultivate our minds and higher parts. You, I suppose, she addressed Mrs T -*"«msr. “are still in bondage?"

“I suppose we are,” admitted the Doctor’s wife reluctantly. “Oh—she is; the worst way,” declared the Doctor, rising somewhat painfully, and assisting his wife to struggle up. Mrs Hannay watched the operation with a disapproving eye. “Look how stiff you are,” she said. “That comes of eating salt, according to the latest theory. It’d do you a great deal of good to come and sit on the grass often. Come any time,” she added hospitably; then, triumphantly, “you can’t interrupt me any time, for there’s nothing to interrupt!” ‘‘Oh, we shall come,” said the Doctor emphatically. And they did. It would have been difficult for either of them to stay long away from a house with so many children in it, but each was secretly aware of another magnetic drawing than that of “the earth.” Therefore, when the Doctor pushed! away his plato aftcj* lunch, not many days after, and remarked casually: “1 believe I’ll just step over and see how the simple life is thriving,” his wife responded with alacrity, “I believe I’ll go with you.” Then, being still in bondage, she looked at the clock and hesitated: “At this hour?” “You forget we can’t interrupt them, twinkled the Doctor. "Harvest and seedtime are all one to the simple life, and I’ve got just a half-hour to spare.” “Very well.” Mrs Lansing rose. “I'm going as I am,” she announced with decision; “one skirt is enough to sacrifice.” No signs of life, simple or complex, however, greeted them when they pushed open the gate between the two places. An ominous silence reigned in the deserted garden, and the grass under the apple trees was unpressed of any stray literary shoots. “Goodness! do you suppose they are all ill?” exclaimed Mrs Lansing. “Ur dead? It wouldn’t surprise me one bit.” He rang the bell, and to the sound of scuffling feet appeared the apparition of Henry James, who peered through the opened door, then smiled charmingly. “1 simply love that boy,” thought the Doctor. Aloud he said: " How do you do, Henry James? Is your mother at home?” Mrs Hannay’s voice replied from the interior.

"Is that you, Doctor? Come right in.” And Henry Janies, throwing wide the door, admitted them to a cheerful room where, about a spacious, round table, were seated the family. "Sit right down and have dessert with us/’ said Mrs Hannay cordially, as before she had offered them the grassplot. "William Dean, Elizabeth, bring chairs for the Doctor and Mrs Lansing.” "We are so sorry to have interrupted,” began that dismayed lady, her eyes, round with amazement, unable to detach themselves from the table; hut the Doctor broke in:

"Im not sorry, and, even if I have lunched, I don’t care if I do have a piece, of that pie, Mrs Hannay. My wife keeps me rather short,” he added gravely. “Blackberry or raspberry or peach?" asked Mrs Hannay. “I made these this morning—and those doughnuts, too. Elizabeth Stuart, pass those to Mis Lansing.” “This, in my judgment, is what Heaven made the fruits of the earth for,” said the Doctor, after a mouthful. “But I thought the simple life was a pieless one, Mrs Hannay?” Mrs Hannay shrugged her shoulders. “To tell the truth,” she said candidly, "we all got enough of that simple living. I couldn’t seem to fill up my time, anyhow. We tried Nature-study, and, at the last, I started to take up the Art-Spirit. But the plain truth is, we’re not an artistic family; I’m .all for science, and the children are just like me. Besides, I concluded there’s not much in it. When you come to think about it, everybody must have lived' a simple life in the beginning, and I can’t make out that the human race was any the better for it. I believe in evolution myself. I’ve made up my mind it isn’t what you eat, but how you eat it, and not eating too much. Marcella Humphry”—she broke off reprovingly—"you’re not chewing!” "I can’t, Ma,” protested Marcella Humphry; “it’s all chewed;” and she offered in proof an extent of vacant interior territory.

“Then you can sit still and digest a while,” said her mother severely. “You can chew anything thirty-two times. The way children —and most grown folks —bolt their food!” she turned to the Doctor’s wife. “Fletcher says we don’t need more than half what wc eat.” She glanced about the circle, and six pairs of inoperative jaws promptly became operative. “I chewed mine thirty-seven times,” announced Samuel Clemens; “can I have another piece?” “You may both have a small piece," replied Mrs Hannay judiciously, cutting two careful triangles, which she then transferred to the scale-pan of a large pair of scales, upon which Mrs Lansing's fascinated gaze had long been riveted. Lifting the triangles out, Mrs Hannay handed them to their claimants and proceeded to write something on a sheet of l>aper beside her plate. "May I have another?” asked the Doctor.

"Oh, you may have as many as you like,” replied his hostess. “I’m only responsible for the healtli of this family. That’s a plenty,” she added, in a vain after-endeavor to conceal the extreme of her enjoyment of responsibility. She placed a generous portion on the Doctor’s plate, hut he looked at it without offering to take it. “Aren’t you going to weigh mine, too?” he asked disappointedly. Seven small sets of jaws, relieved from the tension of Fletcherising, relaxed into delighted grins, and by that token Mrs Lansing saw her husband henceforth firmly ■enthroned in the family affection.

“Oh, you may laugh,” said, Mrs Hannay tranquilly, ‘‘but up at Battle Creek they weigh everything. My sister says it’s one of the sights of a lifetime to see a thousand people sitting down day after day, filling out their papers after each meal—how many calorics and proteids they've ate” (she pronounced it firmly—“et”). ‘Tv© been studying into it a little, and I thought I’d begin with weighing how much farinaceous stuff and how much meat—•—”

“Meat!” interrupted the Doctor in a shocked tone; “don’t tell me you are sacrificing the innocent animals!” "Hew about the innocent vegetables?” inquired this shameless apostate of the higher life. “There again, it isn’t what you kill —we’ve got to kill something; it’s how you kill it.” "Tlic cannibal can say the same,” observed the Doctor sententiously. "He can,” admitted Mrs Hannay. “After all, I think myself we’ll all live on tabloids some day, predigested ones, too ; and gradually our stomachs will get eliminated.” “Heaven forbid !” exclaimed the Doctor. “Where would my practice be?” “Well, you make something out of appendixes even yet, don’t you?” returned Mrs Hannay dryly. “Anyway,” she returned undaunted to the charge, “I believe there’s something in weighin’—or it isn’t likely so manv would spend so much on it. Look at Battle Creek!”

“It does seem so different when yon pay for it,” conceded the Doctor thoughtfully. “Well—l’m glad you are going in for nourishment; Mary, here,” he stroked fondly the cheek of Mary Wilkins, “looks a little peaked.” “She does,” assented her mother, and the Doctor saw a stern joy kindle in her eye. “I’m going to try the milk cureon her.”

“That sounds harmless,” muttered the Doctor.

“It’s a new Western thing I’vo just been jeading about,” expounded Mrs Hannay With enthusiasm. - “Nothing hut milk for three weeks, and then a week to get back to the normal. You begin with a quart or so a day and work up to seven,

The second day the stomach rebels, but you keep right on at the milk diet and soon get over it,” The Doctor, turning in some dismay to reassure the appointed victim, met a glance of undisguised pride and expectation. Either, happy in to-day’s doughnuts, Mary Wilkins was unmindful of the sorrow, or else, the reflected, she might he hardened to experiment by now. Uome, now,” he said, ‘‘that’s not half a bad cure; I’d like to keep an eye on it myself; cures interest me. I should think,” he added thoughtfully, “there ought to be a good deal of ice cream and whipped 1 cream the fourth week —char-lotte-russes and things—in older not to change the diet too abruptly.” Marv Wilkins Freeman gave him a look of positive adoration, and the faces of the other six darkened sombrely; they were not elected for the milk-cure. When ho reached his own house the Doctor sat down in I’is armchair and laughed until he wept. •That woman will be the death of me! he declared, wiping his eyes. “More likely the death of those poor children,” excaimed his wife with some scorn. ‘Are you really going to stand by and see her ruin the digestion of that poor little Mary Wilkins?” She looked at him indignantly. “Not a bit of it,” chuckled the Doctor. “They fairly thrive on her experiments. There’s something healthy in ideas—even fool ones. They’ll never die of that stagnation and bondage ,to routine which afflicts half my patients. Why, I go into a score of homes here where the children—yes, and the grown-ups, loo—arc fairly pining away for lack of anything to break the deadly perfectness of tilings. I'd like to turn Mrs Hannay loose in a few of ’■cm.” He chuckled again. "Besides, there’s safety in crowds; she doesn’t keep any idea long enough lor it to bo dangerous. As for the milk cure, I was on the point of suggesting something similar myself, but I hesitated —I was afraid she’d put the whole family on it.” True to his promise, the Doctor saw Mary Wilkins safely through her cure, in the midst of an interested and Fletcherising family. It was, indeed, only duo to the Doctor’s persistence that the cure was carried to a finish, for half-way through it Mrs Hannay, having encountered Metchuikoff, proposed to the Doctor to substitute buttermilk for milk.

•‘lt seems foolish to waste your time with a thing that’s only going to do you good for tho moment, when you can double your life by taking something else —according to Mctchnikoff,” was her argu-

ment. “First time, then eternity, replica the Doctor laconically. Mctchnikoff was a deathblow to Flctcherism, as was inevitable; but Metchnikoff, reduced to pure theory because of difficulties intrinsic to a steady supply of buttermilk, could not, byjiimself, lill the void left by Fletcher. And even more than Nature, Mrs Hannay hated a void. That she had contrived to fill it became patent to tiie Doctor tho moment he entered the house on that day which was to celebrate Mary Wilkins’ return toward the normal by'the pleasant path of chocolate ice cream. Mary, saucer in hand and spoon suspended, was watching, enthralled, the other six children drawn up in a military lino opposite, hnd as the Doctor opened -the door lie caught the directions; . , , “Henry James, go on breathing deep. William Dean, draw in your abdomen ! and the Doctor paused, fascinated, on the threshold. “What have I struck now?'’ he demanded. "Phvsical culture?” “In a way, yes,” said Mrs Hannay briefly. “They’re buildin’ up their bodies, and gettin’ an ’earned appetite’ at the same time. Elizabeth, you can breathe a lot deeper than that!” Elizabeth took two or three powerful inspirations, letting off steam after, like :■ steam engine. “Samuel Clemens, hold your neck back against your collar!” decreed Mrs Hanna y. “It’s all in how you stand and breathe,” she explained to the Doctor. “Deep breathin’, and drawiu’ in your abdomen, and keepin’ your neck against your collar.” The Doctor surveyed the painful row of ramrods opposite. “Can’t wo relax and Fletcherisc for a while?” he inquired mildly. "I saw ;n ice-cream freezer outside.” 1

“You can if yon want,” replied his hostess calmly. “We’ve given that up. ’ ‘‘Goodness, gracious—why?” asked the Doctor. “Well, I can’t see that it’s done a thing for us—except to make Henry Janies’ jaw grow out. 1 don’t believe there's anything in it, nor in weighin’ all your food, either.” “How about the vegetarian heart? asked the Doctor.

“How about tho vegetarian brain?” “e----torted Mrs Hannay. “There’s the whole Orient—”

“Look at the patient ox,” persisted tho Doctor. “Look at tho patient Hindu,” responded his opponent triumphantly. “Livin’ in the midst of filth, idolatry and childwidows ! There’s a'll tho Eastern nations — strict vegetarians—and look how they treat their women. I don’t believe in havin’ your mind on your food every minute, anyway ; I believe you can think too much about it; and I'd rather eat alone than with a lot of people forever chewin’. You can’t talk if you chew, and you can’t chew if you talk. 1 don’t believe it matters what you eat nor how you eat it, if the stomach’s in proper condition. And that,” she added with a warning glance at the row opposite, “depends on how you stand- and breathe. Samuel Clemens 1”

Six abdomens were simultaneously elevated and six necks thrust religiously hack against collars, while Elizabeth Stuart, who had evidently made the province of deep breathing her own, began to puli’ formidably. All six betrayed an intense enjoyment in this new a.id charming exercise.

"Wen, I think rnyseJf it does rather destroy the banquet idea,” was the Doctor's parting concession to Fletcherism. "Let ns therefore relax amt feast; anyway, I never chew my ice cream.” "They can relax their jaws,” said Mrs Hannay, ‘‘but there’s no reason they should their shoulder-blades; they don’t cat with those. I’m going to go right on and build up their bodies; to-morrow we’re all going to Ijogin the iXneipp practice—-barefoot-walkin’ in the grass while the dew’s on it; this winter we shall do it in snow.”

The children’s eyes sparkled' in anticipation ; the Doctor, having opened his lips, closed them again; he reflected that winter was still a long way off. But he did not forget to look from his window next morning; and in the gray dawn ho and bis wife beheld a weird procession wending its way across the wet grass—sheeted ghosts of various sizes. For Jive mornings this, pageant enjoyed a brief but exhilarating season; on the sixth the Doctor missed it!.

“I think I’ll just run over and see how many arc down -with pneumonia,” he observed with weLi-atfected indifference, but his wife pierced this shallow pretence. “You know you are simply consumed Avith vulgar curiosity.” ‘‘Well, I admit it; I am.”

The vulgar trait had. lime to acquire a fine edge before his third knock at the door produced Elizabeth Stuart, the trace of tears still visible on her small face. In the background of the room William Dean, looking very small and pale, was crouched on the sofa, ami in the fore.ground Mrs Hannay, with a- very flushed face, was rocking vigorously, “Sit right down, Doctor. How do you do?” she croaked in a hoarse whisper. “Why, what’s the matter with Bessie?” ashed th" as Elizabeth Stuart,

stifling a sob, fled to the sofa. "And what’s the matter with you —and William?” “There isn’t anything the matter with Bessie,” croaked her mother calmly. “She thinks she jammed her finger, but as she hasn’t any finger to jam, she can’t jam it.” “Is the woman crazy?” thought the Doctor. He walked over to the sofa, examined a minute finger and “kissed it we FI,” and with the comforted child in his arms walked back to the rocker and, stooping unceremoniously,, read the title of the book in his hostess’ lap. Then ho stood up. “Um-ah!” ho said. “So that’s what ails you, is it?” “Nothing ails me,” enunciated Mrs Hannay hoarsely, rocking defiantly. The Doctor’s eyes twinkled. “Then what,” he asked, “is the matter with your voice?” . “Nothing is the matter with my voice, replied Mi’s Hannay in the same hoarse whisper, “except mortal error. ’ “Whose mortal error —yours or mine?” “Both,” was the prompt reply. “WoPI, there’s William, what ails him?” “Nothing,” repeated Mrs Hannay firmly. “Ho thinks he’s got a claim to stomachache, but it isn’t anything. Yesterday Marcella Humphry thought she had one to cramps.” “I can’t say I’m surprised,” remarked the Doctor dryly. "But it wasn’t anything,” said Mrs Hannay triumphantly. “Why, at this very minute I’ve got a false claim to foolin’ ill myself; but knowin’ it is a false claim, I’m not payin’ any .attention to it,” and she rocked with redoubled energy. The Doctor looked at her critically, “May I feel yoiir pulse? You’ve still got a pulse, I suppose!” “I’ve got what you'll think is a pulse,” replied Mrs Hannay, extending firmly a burning wrist; “but in reality it’ll be nothing but your own error.” The Doctor counted the illusion of a pulse presented to him, and shrugged Iris shoulders. "You’re on the way to as fine a false claim to pneumonia or bronchitis as I wish to see,” ho observed dryly. “But having no lungs—l can’t have cither,” croaked Mrs Hannay, tranquilly rocking. “No lungs,” began the Doctor emphatically; but Mrs Hannay interrupted him calmly. “You can't have lungs without a body, can you?” "Not outside an anatomical museum,” answered the Doctor gravely. “Well-—and 1 haven’t any body, except a spiritual one,” triumphantly proclaimed the owner of one hundred, and sixty-odd pounds. "1. never wished to sec a healthier ghost.” The Doctor’s lone was slih

grave. "Nothing is real,” continued Mrs Ha»pay unmovec], ‘‘except what isn't —such as ideas. William Dean! 1 don’t know as there’s any reason, because you think you’ve got a stomachache when you Jiavcn't even got a stomach, why you shouldn’t keep your neck against your collar !” "How can he—if he hasn’t any neck or any collar?” asked the Doctor. "lie can lean against the idea,” said his mother firmly, ‘‘Henry James, what are you gettin’ into that lire for?” "I'm cold,” complained Henry Janies. "You can’t be; there’s no such tiling as cold,” returned the indomitable matron. "You go right over to that corner and tell yourself it’s mortal error a few times and you’ll find you’re warm enough.” "How can he—if there’s no sucli thing as heat?” persisted the Doctor, "There’s the idea,” patiently returned the sufferer —and the Doctor thought ho detected the beginnings of what has been called by scoffers "the kind t hristian Science smile.” "I'm guin’ to break up the slavery to mortal error in this family,” she concluded with native and unmistakable energy. The Doctor eyed. her. "Why do you wear clothes?” he asked. "On account of the police,” replied Mrs Hannay shortly. “Well, look here,” he tried diplomacy. "If my medicines can't hurt you, being non-existent, why not take them?” "I'd just as soon not,” croaked Mrs Hannay cheerfully, “if It wasn t for the idea of medicine bein’ a- mortal error. ’ The Doctor rose. "All right,” ho said dryly. “I'll come round to-morrow and see which it is—pneumonia or bronchitis.” It proved to bo bronchitis. "And no wonder,” said the Doctor, a few weeks later, when Mrs Hannay was able to sit up for the Jirst tune. "Iho children are used to these antics, but a woman of your years Kneipping around in that temperature—Dm astonished at you !” “I’m more astonished at the total failure of Christian Science,” said the patient with a sigh, yet with something of her old spirit. "I began to have suspicions the day before you called, when ■Samuel Clemens got stung by a hornet; but still 1 thought I d give it a fair trial—and I did. All 1 can say is—that teachin’ is mortal error.” “Oh—well, 1 don’t know; there's a lot in it,” interjected the Doctor tolerantly; but Mrs Hannay was not to be conciliated. “A lot of foolishness, I should say, ’ she snorted. “Well —I hope this lesson will last her,” was Mrs Lansing’s comment on the conversation ; but the Doctor only shook ins head. He greatly misdoubted his patient’s busy brain and the idle days of convalescence in combination. “She’s simply got to be doing something,” he said. “What ails her is excess of mental' energy; it’s like power Tunning to waste. It’s positively unlucky they have enough money to live on; occupation is what the needs. All my patients have some of these fads; her only 'peculiarity is in having the whole bunch together.” 'A/ "Is there anything left for her to have?” inquired .Mrs Lansing plaintively. “If there is‘she’ll lind it,” answered the Doctor. He had a prompt intuition that she had found it, when on his late daily call the next day the door was opened to him by a small sheeted figure, and in the interior of the room,' faintly lighted by firelight, ho discerned a weird circle drawn about the table. -Mrs Hannay alone was unsheeted. "Hood Heavens!” ho exclaimed, “you’re not Kneipping again, indoors, arc you ?” “Shbsh,” replied Mrs Hannay in a loud whisper; “maybe you’d like to join the circle, Doctor?” "What in the name of—Science are you doing?” The Doctor picked up the slim form of Marcella Humphry and sat down with it on Iris knees. The child instantly spread out small hands to join the fourteen other starfishes on* the table-lop. “We’re trying to get a communication.” “Communication, from whore?” ( "Spirits 1” piped up the circle gleefully. “Trying to Taise a set of nervous prostrations, I should! say,” exclaimed the Doctor disgustedly. “Look here, children, I’ll give you five cents for every ■ghost you catch.” This offer was received jubilantly, but promptly dampened by Mrs Hannay, who, declaring the “influences” disturbed, broke up the scanco incontinently. “To tell the truth,” fche confided to the Doctor with one of her characteristic outbursts of candor, “I don’t know as there s anything in it —and I don’t know but there is. What put it into my head was the Kneipp cure and Christian Science together, walkin’ around in sheets and havin’ no body. And then,” she added, a little dispiritedly, “I’ve tried most everything relatin’ to this life, and I thought I'd try the next—for a change. It don’t seem to me there’s much in

either of them. But one thing Ido know” —her eye kindled with a spark of its old fire—“if Mr Hannay’s spirit’s got anything to say, he can say it rigid here at this table, through the medium of these innocent souls and bein’s, just as well’s ho can through some woman that’s controlled 1 by an Indian spirit at two dollars an hour. Mr Hannay never had to do with Indians an his lifetime, and I don’t know why he should now.” “There’s a strange, weird streak of sense in that woman,” said the Doctor, chuckling again, as he later recounted this to O O / his unfailing audience of one. “Strange, I should say!” repeated his wife indignantly. “She ought to he prohibited from having children.” “Instead of which”—the Doctor barely repressed a sigh—“she has seven uncommonly fine ones. The laird knows why—if Me does. “They will he seven uncommonly fine nervous wrecks presently,” said Mrs Lansing severely. "Not they! Any other family would; hut they’re immune. They have been brought up on this kind 'of thing; it’s just one more of their mother’s little experiments to them. Why, that little, imp, William Doan, was trailing round in a sheet, shouting: T’m a ghost! I’m a ghost!’ perfectly happy.” “I hope she likes having her sheets trailed about that way,” sniffed the Doctor’s wife, still unappeased. “Oh—she; she’s superior to such trifles. She said complacently that she liked to have them cultivating a nearness to the spiritual 1 ; she wanted them to fool just as much at home in that •sphere’ as in this; and when I hinted -at nerves she said she was particularly anxious they shouldn’t contract what she called ‘fear-thoughts.’ I bet, if she had another, she’d name it William James. But they haven't a nerve fin their Inxlies; they’re alive all over, life’s so interesting. 1 think, on the whole, they are the best amused children I know. Just compare them with Mrs Montgomery-Hunt's; she won’t let her darlings read the Arabian Nights—for fear of its making them nervous; and won’t let them he read to at night—for fear of exciting their brains. Those children sec ghosts, all right.” “Oh, well—l don’t think she need worry about their brains,” said Mrs Lansing with sweet inconsistency. “No,” grumbled the Doctor, “she needn’t. Why, imagining is just half the fun of living; any normal child will invent a spook, if it’s not provided. And there’s another thing,” he continued — “you never see the Hannay children on the street. They live in one grand, sweet song of adventure, and their mother is the leader of the orchestra. I believe if she failed to hatch out a new scheme each week they'd be disappointed; I know I

should.” "Oh, you—you encourage her,” laughed his wife helplessly. ‘‘Well—l’d rather pay her rent than have them move away,” confessed the Doctor. He felt that he had a foretaste of what this calamity would mean to him, in the next few weeks, during which a singular languor appeared to envelop lire house of Hannay. And when, at the end of a month, a sudden pall of silence fell upon (he place, the Doctor began to fear the worst had happened and they had moved away, Arablike, in the darkness. “Oh, it’s just because the children are at school,” Mrs Lansing reassured him. “The schools opened this week.” “That ■doesn’t account for Mrs Hannay,” asid the Doctor gloomily. His wife laughed, but in the afternoon, impelled by what she chose to nominate as the Doctor’s curiosity, she strolled over; and for a paralysed moment she saw all her husband's prophecies fulfilled on the opening of the Hannay door to her by a white-aproned, trim maidservant. She assured Mrs Lansing, however, that the Hannays were still in possession—only they were all out. Three successive calls produced the same information. Then Mrs Lansing withdrew into the dignity of pride. "You can go, if you choose to display your curiosity,” she said witheringly to her husband, when he proposed a visit; and for once the Doctor, guilty in the conscious possession of the trait ascribed him, stoically suffered a congestion of it for several days. It was Mrs Hannay herself who mercifully came to his relief before the attack had become either chronic or fatal. At least the servant announced her as Mrs Hannay; neither the Doctor nor his wife could have identified her offhand, as they stared open-eyed —and all but openmouthed —at the erect, handsome, tailorclad figure which walked into the lamplight and extended hands—kid-gloved—to them, “I suppose I ought to apologise for not coming before,” said Mrs Hannay, and even her voice seemed to have undergone a subtle change to match her costume, "but the truth is, a business woman hasn’t any time to make calls, any more than a business man.” “A—business woman?” faltered Mrs Lansing. "Yes,” repeated Mrs Hannay with tranquil emphasis, “a business woman, or perhaps 1 ought to say a professional one. Y’ou didn’t kno\v I’d l gone into the library business? Well, I have—assistant librarian. It came about like a Providence, just when 1 was wondering what I should do with myself. 1 happened in to exchange some books just after the assistant was taken ill, and the librarian asked me if I knew any capable young man who could substitute, it came across me in a Hash that 1 was as capable as any one, and 1 said : ‘Yes, myself.’ The librarian was taken aback at first, Said they’d always had a man; and I told him then ’twould be a good thing to have a woman for a change; and he asked about ray qualifications, and I told him I’d read pretty near every book in the library (he knew that was true, too). He stuck it out and 1 stuck it out, and so,” wound up Mrs Hannay tranquilly, “I got the place.” “I don’t wonder you did,” breathed Mrs Lansing. "Oh, you can get pretty much anything, in this' world if you make up your mind to, and I just set my heart on that library position harder than I’d ever set it on anything before. It was funny, too, because, up till that moment, such an idea never crossed my mind,” admitted Mi's Hannay thoughtfully. “Well, I haven’t been there a month yet, but that librarian would hate worse to see me go than I would to go. But I’m not going,” she spoke with energy. “I’m qualifying nights and days and Sundays; I’m learnin’ the system and typewriting and stenography, in evening classes; I’ll be the head of that library yet; the present one wants to go to a larger city. I see a lot of things to improve there; but that isn’t ail —1 see a lot of things to improve all over the city, since I went there. That library is just the cornerstone of this whole town; it connects with the schools, and they connect with everything else. I’m working to get on the school board; and I’m (min’ to get on the board of health, too, sooner or later. I’m going in for clean streets, and clean ’water, and pure food,' and playgrounds, and juvenile courts, and no saloons, and a clean city generally. By the time my children are grown up we’ll have a city fit for them to live in. There’s an amount of graft—right there in the library and the schools! And to think that, with all this goin’ on, and seven souls to answer lor, 1 never found it out till now! But that comes of being a narasite; I’ve been nothin’ else all my life long, and I was headin’ to make parasites of every one of those children!” She spoke sternly. “But I’ve put an end to all that,” said that lady with decision. “I’m paying for a first-class, responsible maid—l can afford to, now I’m earning my bread—and

the children are all at school—doin’ well, too ; not o".e of them’s dull.

“No, 1 should think not,” interpolated the Doctor.

“I’ve had every one of them choose a profession. Henry Janies wanted to be a circus-rider —same as every boy does ; but he’s goin’ to study law; that’ll come nrotty near it”—her firm lips relaxed a trifle. “William Dean has leanin’s towards experiments, he’ll make a doctor; they’re both ways of servin'* your fellowmen, even if they’re uncertain ones. Samuel Clemens is for the ministry, he likes to talk ; and Rudyard’s going to devote himself to social service.”

.“Goodness! why, he’s only seven !” exclaimed the Doctor’s wife.

“Well, he’s able to think already,” returned his parent placidly. “I don’t care if they do change their minds later; I expect some of them will, but I want them to have minds to change. Elizabeth Stuart’s goin’ to take up scientific poultry raisin’; she’s crazy about chickens ” “Oh, the girls, too!” faintly exclaimed Mrs Lansing.

Mrs Hannay looked at her—more in pity than scorn.

“I don’t myself see that a female a ea’s any less a Ilea for not being’ a male one, and the female mosquito's the one that does the bitin’,” she observed. “The. Lord’s given Elizabeth Stuart, Mary Wilkins, and Marcella Humphrv a brain, and just as many hands and eyes as their brothers, and so long’s He has, I take it, He means ’em to use them. I do, any how. It’s awful enough to think that I’ve boon livin’ on the toil of others all my life—without there bein’ seven more to come after me. Mary Wilkins,” she resumed firmly, "has a turn for the stage ; I think that’s as useful and honorable as any other business, and T shall give her the trainin’ for it. I’d like to go on the stage myself,” she added ruminatingly. “Marcella Humphrey thinks she wants to be a trolley-car driver. I don’t myself see any good and holy reason why a woman shouldn't be a trolley-car driver ft she wants to. They can be anything decent they like,” she concluded with emphasis, “except a parasite. And now I’ve got to rush home.” She rose with a businesslike air and the Doctor opened the door for her.

"Then,” he said teasingly, yet rather wistfully, “it’s ail over—all our good times the Fletcherising Kneipping— Simple-Lifeing—raising the dead—all of it?” Mrs Hannay’s really fine eyes rested a moment on his, as she paused on the threshold; in their twinkle a whole future Mrs Hannay stood revealed. “Doctor, you know what happens when there’s a vacuum in Nature?" "Yes,” said the Doctor, “it gets filled.” “Just exactly!” emphasised Mrs Hannay ; and with another twinkle she stepped into tho night. The .Doctor, returning to the study, brought clown his hand upon the table with a force which made his wife jump. "It's great! It’s immense! What did T tell yon? She'll be on every board in this town within a year—and probably mayor in five.' I dare say she’ll run for the presidency in ten. And I don’t know any ‘sacred and holy reason’ why she shouldn’t.” Then be paused a moment and chuckled. “As for her vacuumtheory, 1 wonder if ” "1 wonder if—too,” said his wife promptly. Then they both laughed.