"Good time! Tell you what, Corry, I won't come up here unless you'll come and visit us in the city. I've been thinking over lots of things I could show you and Pen. I've had the biggest kind of a time."

"You must come up some time in summer," said aunt Judith. "The country is beautiful then. Better fishing, hunting--all sorts of fun."

"I guess there isn't any thing better than winter fun," said Susie thoughtfully. "I do like the country at any time of the year."

Vosh Stebbins and his mother also sat in front of their sitting-room fireplace, and were uncommonly still and sober.

"Mother," said he at last, "I've had the greatest winter I ever did have. There's been any amount of fun in it, but seems to me there's been a good deal more."

"Yes," said his mother, "they've been right good company, and I'm real sorry to hev 'em go; but it's time they went, and her mother's health's come back to her. She's one of the best of women, I haven't the least doubt in the world. I never seen a girl I took to more'n I hev to Susie Hudson, and I hope she and Port'll come up here again; and I've been a-findin' out how much it'll cost to hev you go to college, and you've got to jest study up and go."

"Mother!" That was all he could say; for his mind had been playing chess with that problem since he did not know exactly when, and he had not dared to speak of it.

One week later the Farnham and Stebbins farmhouses felt smaller and lonelier, and Penelope teased for a pen and ink, remarking,--

"If I write to Susie right away, it may get there almost as soon as she does, and she won't have to wait for it to come."

The rest of the family and their neighbors had their hands full of spring work, and had no time to think much of their recent visitors; but their visitors were thinking of them. A lady and gentleman in a city home were listening to prolonged and full accounts of their children's winter in the country, and every now and then the gentleman exclaimed,--

"Vosh Stebbins again!" At the end of it all, he said to his wife,--

"My dear, did you know that youngsters of that kind were scarce? I must keep an eye on him. Susie says he's to have an education. Got a good beginning for one now, I should say. If he should go straight, there's no telling what he might do. He can graduate from college into my office, if he wishes to. I knew his father, and his mother's as good as gold."

"Hurrah!" shouted Port. "Then Vosh can kill his bears in the city. How'd you like that, Susie? I'd like it."

Susie only turned to her mother, and asked,--

"What do you think, mother?"

"I? Oh, we will have plenty of time to think it over. We can go up there and visit, and we can have them down here."

Nevertheless Vosh did go to college, and he did pa.s.s from it to Mr.

Hudson's law-office; and it is true, to this day, that n.o.body can tell what he will do, he is doing so much and so well.

SCRIBNER'S BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.

_Scribner's List of Juvenile Books._

_The great legend of the Nibelungen told to boys and girls._

THE STORY OF SIEGFRIED.

BY JAMES BALDWIN

With a series of superb ill.u.s.trations by HOWARD PYLE.

Mr. Baldwin has at last given "The Story of Siegfried" in the way in which it most appeals to the boy-reader,--simply and strongly told, with all its fire and action, yet without losing any of that strange charm of the myth, and that heroic pathos, which every previous attempt at a version, even for adult readers, has failed to catch.

THE STORY OF ROLAND.

BY JAMES BALDWIN

With a series of ill.u.s.trations by R. B. BIRCH.

This volume is intended as a companion to "The Story of Siegfried." As Siegfried was an adaptation of Northern myths and romances to the wants and the understanding of young readers, so is this story a similar adaptation of the middle-age romances relating to Charlemagne and his paladins. As Siegfried was the greatest of the heroes of the North, so, too, was Roland the most famous among the knights of the Middle Ages.

"We congratulate the boys of the land upon the appearance of this book.

We commend it to parents who are selecting literature for their children, a.s.sured, as we are, that it will convince them that books may be found which will engage the attention, and stimulate the imagination, of the young, without dissipating the mind, or blunting the moral sensibilities."--_Philadelphia Messenger._

THE FIRST REALLY PRACTICAL BOY'S BOOK.

THE AMERICAN BOY'S HANDY BOOK;

Or, WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO DO IT.

BY DANIEL C. BEARD.

With three hundred ill.u.s.trations by the author. _One volume_

_Mr. Beard's book is the first to tell the active, inventive, and practical American boy the things he really wants to know, the thousand things he wants to do, and the ten thousand ways in which he can do them, with the helps and ingenious contrivances which every boy can either procure or make._

The author divides the book among the sports of the four seasons; and he has made an almost exhaustive collection of the cleverest modern devices, besides himself inventing an immense number of capital and practical ideas.

THE BOY'S _Library of Legend and Chivalry_.

EDITED BY SIDNEY LANIER, _And richly ill.u.s.trated by FREDERICKS, BENSELL, and KAPPES._

THE BOY'S KING ARTHUR

THE BOY'S FROISSART

KNIGHTLY LEGENDS OF WALES

THE BOY'S PERCY

"Amid all the strange and fanciful scenery of these stories, character and the ideals of character remain at the simplest and the purest. The romantic history transpires in the healthy atmosphere of the open air, on the green earth beneath the open sky.... The figures of Right, Truth, Justice, Honor, Purity, Courage, Reverence for Law, are always in the background; and the grand pa.s.sion inspired by the book is for strength to do well and n.o.bly in the world."--_The Independent._

THE BOY'S MABINOGION.

Being the earliest Welsh tales of King Arthur in the famous Red Book of Hergest. Edited for boys, with an Introduction by SIDNEY LANIER. With twelve full-page ill.u.s.trations by Alfred Fredericks.