One evening, when the green stalks towered more than elbow-high around them, Thanny and Milly walked through the rows, talking to each other across them. They both looked happy. Milly's small thin face had rounded out a little, and turned to a golden brown. She walked with little quick jubilant steps. The old farm looked so beautiful to-night! What would father say? Suddenly she began to laugh. In front of her dangled her scarecrow--the work of her own hands--mincing and bowing to her ludicrously. A slight breeze stirred his hempen hair and swayed his coat skirts. It was Thanny's coat and Thanny's hat and Thanny's trousers and boots. He was an unwieldy, unflattering travesty of Thanny, with, oddly enough, his stooped shoulders, and old air of depression and gloom. Had Thanny bequeathed them to Milly's scarecrow, for once and all? For to-night Thanny's shoulders were not stooped, and his whole expression was cheery and manly. He stopped too and laughed. "My goodness me! Thanny, ain't he a beauty?" giggled Milly, delightedly. "Milly," Thanny said, "that's me. I've been watching myself this long time--stooped over and hangdog and down in the mouth. I've been seeing myself the way you and other folks used to see me, and--well, it was kind of a bitter pill, but I took it, and I guess it's done me good. I guess so." The summer days swelled the sweet-corn kernels and brought the ears to their perfection. It was almost time to cut them and carry them away to the factory, when one day Nathan found Millia among the rows, and stopped to put both his big hands on both her shoulders with unusual gentleness. Looking up into his face, she thought how serenely happy it seemed. "Milly," he said, laughing a little in quiet triumph, "they offered me eighty dollars an acre for this corn to-day." "Why, Thanny!" "Yes'm; and I took it." He walked away, down one row and up another. Then he faced her again. "Milly, we've struck pay dirt a'ready. We've found the gold," he said. "Why, Thanny! Why, I thought--" And then Milly caught his sudden sweeping gesture, comprehending all the golden stalks of corn, row after row, and understood. "Why, yes!" she cried; "so it is, Thanny Thacher--it's our gold!" "Yes," Thanny said, thoughtfully, as they walked home together, and there was quiet contentment in his voice. "Yes, I guess it's all right. The assayer said there wasn't enough gold in the rocks to make it worth while, but there's gold in the old sod, Milly. We've struck 'pay dirt.'" A FAIR RETORT. It is quite as hard as ever to get ahead of Pat. This was proved the other day during a trial in an English court-room, an Irish witness being examined as to his knowledge of a shooting affair. "Did you see the shot fired?" the magistrate asked, when Pat had been sworn. "No, sorr. I only heard it," was the evasive reply. "That evidence is not satisfactory," replied the magistrate, sternly, "Stand down!"