"I shall be charmed," said I. "But what a funny meeting-place." "It seems to me very natural," said the Vicar's wife. "Is there going to be speech-making?" I asked. "How absurd!" she answered. "But of course there will be a discussion." "Who else will be present?" I asked. "No one," she said. I was never so puzzled in my life. "It really seems rather odd," said I, "that we should meet alone at the cross-roads. And it seems so romantic too. At five o'clock, you said? I always think that is such a sentimental hour." A bewildered look now crept into the Vicar's wife's face. "Are you joking or serious?" she said. "Perhaps I have not made myself clear. I am simply asking if you could kindly meet the Countess of Aire in place of the Vicar." "And I say I shall be charmed," I repeated; "and I think the prospect is most alluring, and I shall endeavour to do the occasion all honour. I shall put on my best mustard-coloured suit and my new green Tyrolean hat--the one with the feather in it." "I don't see why you should, simply to meet the Countess of Aire." "But think of the romance of the meeting," I urged. "Just fancy! It is to be at the cross-roads, perhaps above the nameless grave of a suicide. There I shall be waiting at five o'clock, all dressed up in my mustard suit and tremulous with excitement. And at last there will dash up to the trysting-place some splendid equipage, a silver-plated car, or the family coach with prancing and foaming horses. And there, at the cross-roads, we shall have our little discussion; no speech-making, all quite informal. Oh, I wish it could have been moonlight!" The Vicar's wife began to look quite scared. "Are you going mad?" she asked. "I think so," I said. "Do you know," I went on wildly, saying just anything by way of preserving my sanity, "I remember that once, when I was quite little, I half promised I would marry this highly exalted person; we were playing together as boy and girl in a garden." "But the Countess of Aire," cried the Vicar's wife, "never was a girl." "And never was a boy either," I cried. "The Countess of Aire," screamed the Vicar's wife--yes, she was fairly screaming by now--"is a he." "Now that _is_ absurd," I said. It was the Vicar, coming round the corner in his usual hurry, as if every day were a Sunday, who saved the situation by bumping into us both. "The Countess of Aire," shrieked his poor wife, frantically clutching him by the coat-tails, "is a man, isn't he?" "Certainly," said the Vicar. "It is a terrible age, but thank Heaven for this," he added piously, "we have yet to learn of a female County Surveyor." * * * * * "NURSERY GOVERNESS WANTED. Three children, 7, 6, and 2 ears."--_Daily Paper._ Plenty of stuff to box. * * * * * [Illustration: THE LIMIT--AND BEYOND. GERMANY. "THEY TELL ME I'VE GOT TO MAKE UP THIS COLOSSAL SUM."