Before she had reached the close of this sentence, the pupils were in such roars of laughter that her voice was drowned. She looked around upon us with such astonished eyes that the thing grew all the funnier, and the boys fairly shouted. Even the gentle teacher was laughing. "O Fannie, Fannie!" she said at last. "Did you really think I meant _pork_?" "Why, what else could you mean?" said bewildered Fannie. And then we all laughed again. "Why, Fannie," said Miss Henderson, "I thought of course you would understand that I meant Lord Bacon." "Lord Bacon!" repeated poor Fannie in dismay; "I never heard of him." So lest you too make the same mistake, I want to introduce you, not to a piece of pork, but to Francis Bacon, who was born in London considerably more than three hundred years ago. Isn't that a long time to be remembered? What about him? Why, he was a very learned man. A lawyer who wrote books that the lawyers of to-day study carefully. Also he wrote essays on a great variety of subjects--essays that scholars in these days read and enjoy. In fact, as I look them over, I see many sentences which girls and boys might enjoy before they are old enough or wise enough to be called scholars. Isn't that a queer idea, that you must be quite wise before people will say of you "he, or she, is a scholar?" I have been reading Lord Bacon's essay on "Cunning," and it certainly shows that the people who lived hundreds of years ago, were at least as cunning as they are now. Listen to this: "It is a point of cunning, when you have anything to obtain of present despatch, to amuse the party with whom you deal, with some other discourse, that he may not be too much awake to make objections. "I knew a secretary who never came to Queen Elizabeth of England, with bills to sign, but he would always first put her in some discourse of state, that she might the less mind the bills." And this: "The breaking off in the midst of that, one was about to say, as if he took himself up, breeds a greater appetite in him, with whom you confer, to know more." Did you never hear girls talk together according to this hint? "Girls, it was the queerest thing you ever heard of! And then Minnie said--but dear me! I don't suppose I ought to tell you that--" At which the girls are almost sure to say, "Oh, yes, do! We'll never repeat it in the world!" It is my opinion that a great many boys and girls must have studied Bacon very carefully. Here is another wise saying: "In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world: beginning, 'the world says,' or, 'there is a speech abroad.'" If Lord Bacon were living in these days, he would know that the way to do it would be to commence all such sentences with "Why, they say," etc. Have you never wondered who "they" were, who are all the time saying such important, and often such disagreeable things? [Illustration: FRANCIS BACON.]