Today's Stichomancy for Toni Braxton

apple trees in all the world like that.''

And one time Bessie Bell was at a pretty house and somebody sat her on a little low chair and said: `` Keep still, Bessie Bell.''

She kept still so long that at last she began to be afraid to move at all, and she got afraid even to crook up her little finger for fear it would pop off loud,--she had kept still so long that all her round little fingers and her round little legs felt so stiff.

Then one, great grown person said: ``She seems a very quiet child.'' And the other said: ``She is a very quiet child--sometimes.''

But just then Bessie Bell turned her head, and though her round little neck felt stiff it did not pop!--and she saw--something in

gust, he merely crammed it into his pocket, gave the time to Jean- Marie, and the next moment they were both counting their pulses as if for a wager.

At nightfall the wind rose into a tempest. It besieged the hamlet, apparently from every side, as if with batteries of cannon; the houses shook and groaned; live coals were blown upon the floor. The uproar and terror of the night kept people long awake, sitting with pallid faces giving ear.

It was twelve before the Desprez family retired. By half-past one, when the storm was already somewhat past its height, the Doctor was awakened from a troubled slumber, and sat up. A noise still rang

charged for candles, for food and drink, and for the beds we slept in. But there was nothing in the bill for the husband's pleasant talk; nor for the pretty spectacle of their married life. And there was yet another item unchanged. For these people's politeness really set us up again in our own esteem. We had a thirst for consideration; the sense of insult was still hot in our spirits; and civil usage seemed to restore us to our position in the world.

How little we pay our way in life! Although we have our purses continually in our hand, the better part of service goes still unrewarded. But I like to fancy that a grateful spirit gives as

nearly to the Revolution. Bills of a thousand pounds were intermixed with parchment pennies, and worth no more than they.

"And this, then, is old Peter Goldthwaite's treasure!" said John Brown. "Your namesake, Peter, was something like yourself; and, when the provincial currency had depreciated fifty or seventy-five per cent., he bought it up in expectation of a rise. I have heard my grandfather say that old Peter gave his father a mortgage of this very house and land, to raise cash for his silly project. But the currency kept sinking, till nobody would take it as a gift; and there was old Peter Goldthwaite, like Peter the second, with thousands in his strong box and hardly a coat to his

Twice Told Tales