Sweethearts at Home

ss clearly. J

st friends lives-Mr. Butcher Donnan. Or rather he used to be a butcher. For now he ha

most discontented man in Edam. Butcher Donnan has nothing to do. He hangs over his gate, and almost prays stray passers-by to stop and gossip. He has nothing to say to

es at all the cows which look at him over the hedges. He is secretly calculat

from applying the supple part of it to "every lazy man-Jack" in the establishment. Ah, things are not as they were in his time. The floor is not so clean and cool, in spite of the black and white marble squares on which Nipper had insisted. The eye of "Mister"

e head of one of these stupid "assistants." Even Nipper might not get off scot-free. But Butcher Donnan knows t

lities, or even perquisites-though he takes no money for doing them. He can graft rose-trees better than any gardener in the parish. At least he says he can, and by reason of his repeating it often enough and offering to fight anybody who

r and stand ready to clap on the lid. The swarming deep-sunk nests in dry banks he attacks more warily. He brings a little apparatus for heating pitch, and pours it, liquid and sinuous, into the hole till the startled hum sinks into silence. Since an accident which happened last year (owing to the wasp-nest operated upon having a back-door) Butcher Donnan has always taken a quick-sighted boy or two to spy out the land. I suspect our Si

and as he hoists the green flag with a harp, and hauls down the Union Jack on the occas

m liberally during a prolonged convalescence. It is counted rather a good thing to be loyal and get battered by that furious Irish Revolutionary, Butcher Donnan. He has illuminations, too, and has stood for the Sc

for toffee and shortcake there is not the like of her in the whole village of Edam. If it were not for Butcher Donnan's (senior's) dignity, he might be a happy man. For Mrs. Donnan could conduct the finest co

and he will be off to get his pitch-kettle ready, the mask for his face, a

ance Sale"-that it is just chock-full of moths, and in time will pollute the entire household into which it is "raffled." It is wrong to raffle, anyway, says the chief of police, so it will serve them quite right-I shall not take a ticket. Now (said Hugh John, shaking his wise head) if they would only listen to me

ould wear the butcher's "steel" if he l

people to be happy if

him?" I said to Hugh Joh

fought Nipper so long that there is a

ellow for an hour the other day, the two of them sitting

your enemies, he does not care a dump. Or words that mean just the same. And as for Sir Toady-well, give him liberty to go into the woods at night-only an excuse, mind you, and there is no sin

good friends with Nipper. And it was you that brought the whole of

nation. "It was a sort of Ossianic gathering where all the chiefs came to

Toady on to advise Butcher Donnan? There is need of such a

that he had already "sucked up" to the maker of the strawberry shortcake, not to mention the maple-sugar to

John. "As for father, he has too much to do to bother his head about things like that-at least I shan't a

and would not listen to a word his

which, if he had not worn his hair of military shortness, would have

uted. So he tires of it, and finishes by letting her have her own way. That is the secret. Of course at the least word of objection it would be, 'What ho! my highest of high horses!' And crying aloud he

his hands and his eye glued to the telesco

t in the end he finishes by getting there. And now without ever moving he extorted from me the promise that, when I could (and as soon as I could) I should take in hand the tas