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"Why, Herbert! Doesn't she always tell the truth?"

"Her? Why, half the time," poor Herbert babbled, "you can't tell whether she's just one and believed everything that ole girl told you, you haven't got even what little sense I used to think you had!" So base we are under strain, soood name is threatened with the truth of us! "I wouldn't believe anything she said," he added, in a sickish voice, "if she told me fifty times and crossed her heart!"

"Wouldn't you if she said you wrote do pretty you knew your eyes were, Herbert? Wouldn't you if it was on paper in your own handwriting?"

"What's this about Herbert having 'pretty eyes'?" Uncle Joe inquired, again bringing general attention to the young cousins; and Herbert shuddered This fat uncle had an unpleasant reputation as a joker

The nephew desperately fell back upon the hopeless device of attean to reply He becahter, badly cracked "Florence gotthe purported inforot ames with Patty and wouldn't let her play! She's tryin' to et even She made it up! It's all made up! She----"

"No, no," Mr Atwater interrupted "Let Florence tell us Florence, as it about Herbert's knowing he had 'pretty eyes'?"

Herbert atte out He bawled "She made it up! It's somep'n she made up herself! She----"

"Herbert," said Uncle Joseph;--"if you don't keep quiet, I'll take back the printing-press"

Herbert substituted a gulp for the continuation of his noise

"Now, Florence," said Uncle Joseph, "tell us what you were saying about how Herbert knows he has such 'pretty eyes'"

Then it seemed to Herbert that a, Uncle Joseph," she said "I was Just trying to tease Herbert any way I could think of"

"Oh, was that all?" A hopeful light faded out of Uncle Joseph's large and inexpressive face "I thought perhaps you'd detected hihed, "I was just teasin' hi, Uncle Joseph"

Hereupon, Herbert resu Dazed, he reratitude was no part of his emotion He well understood that in conflicts such as these Florence was never susceptible to impulses of compassion; in fact, if there arfare between theht him to be wariest when she seemed kindest He moved away from her, and went into another roo reat-uncle's copy of "Paradise Lost" These illustrations, by M Gustave Doré, failed to aid in reassuring his troubled mind