beaten in a matter of intellect, said at once, "Did Bacon write Shakespeare's plays?" 

 Mrs. Gallup and Mr. Lee were quoted extensively. 

 Miss Taylor could only suggest, with a good deal of quiet dignity, that she could write to The Uncle and find out who is right. This of course closes the controversy for the present. 

 George Jamieson, who goes to town every day, gains advanced views from the magazines which he reads during his dinner-hour in the City, and he is a great assistance to the Reading Society. I contribute the use of my library, and I have heard the members of the Reading Society say that "women are the true leaders of the present movement, and already their influence is being felt by the male mind." 

 George brought with him the current number of the Nineteenth Century when he came home last Friday, instead of Pearson's or the Strand, and already there are whispers of a Magazine Club in Stowel. Miss Frances Taylor received nothing but books on her last birthday, and Palestrina told me a pathetic little story of how Gracie Jamieson went without a pair of shoes to buy a copy of Browning. Perhaps the climax of culture and learning was felt only to have been reached when Eliza introduced the expression "Hypothesis of Purpose" into an ordinary conversation at the conclusion of one of the meetings of the Reading Society. 

 After this, as Palestrina remarked, it was quite refreshing to hear that the curate's wife had got a new baby. It was born on Sunday, and the anxious father spent his days bicycling wildly to and fro between his own house and the church, hopelessly confusing his reading of the service, and then flying back to inquire about his wife's health. Led by him we prayed successively for fine weather and for rain, while the Sunday-school teachers' meeting was announced for 2 a.m. on the following Saturday, and the Coal Club notices were inextricably confused with the banns of marriage. After each service the distracted little man would leap on his bicycle again, and, scattering the departing congregation with his bicycle bell, he was off down the hill to his house. His perturbation was nothing compared with the confusion at home, where, so far as I could make out, the bewildered household did nothing but run up and down stairs, and madly offer each other cups of tea. 

 My sister's kind heart suggested that we should have Peggy, the eldest child, to stay with us until her mother should be better. Is it necessary to mention the fact that 

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