flee from the city to escape the professor of music who hammers a piano ceaselessly, but in his new home he will certainly find a compensating nuisance of some kind. Until all men learn to think and act alike, he will find everywhere in the world those who are fond of the things that he hates, and who will do things that he thinks should be left undone. The man, therefore, who comes to the village in pursuit of perfect peace and quiet of course will not find them. He will encounter the disagreeable practices and peculiarities of other people precisely as he did in the city; he will be called upon to endure annoyances as aggravating as any of those from which he has flown. He can have comparative contentment and repose in either place only by determining to have them despite his neighbors. It is probable that men will always have in this world sharp corners and rough surfaces with which they will jag and tear each other as they roll onward in the swift current of life. Perhaps we shall have smoothness and evenness when we enter Paradise. I hope so, at any rate. And meantime let us all stop growling about evils which cannot be cured. "And now I will conclude our meek little story. Perhaps regretfully I will close the door through which the public has been suffered to peep in upon the movements of our quiet life at home and in the village, and thus will end the spectacle. That life will continue, but it shall be sacred to ourselves, and the events that give it interest shall go unrecorded." [Illustration] * * * * * Transcriber's note: Variant spelling and hyphenation were retained. Punctuation was normalized without comment. Spelling changes: Page 183, "aleak" changed to read "a leak". Page 198, "cetan" changed to read "certain". Page 262, "advertisment" changed to read "advertisement".]