“You,” said Mr. Clyde, grabbing the old lady by both shoulders and giving her a vigorous kiss. “Unanimously elected amidst an uproar of enthusiasm, as the ‘Star’ puts it. Here it is, on the first column of the front page.” For the first time in the history of the Clyde household, the senior member thereof gave way to an unbridled license of speech, in the presence of the family. “Well, I vum!” said Grandma Sharpless. XII. PLAIN TALK “What do you find so interesting in that paper, Strong?” asked Mr. Thomas Clyde, from his place in the corner of the big living-room. Dinner was just finished in the Clyde household, and the elders were sitting about, enjoying the easy and intermittent talk which had become a feature of the day since the Health Master had joined the family. From outside, the play of lively voices, above the harmonized undertones of a strummed guitar, told how the children were employing the after-dinner hour. Dr. Strong let the evening paper drop on his knees. “Something that has set me thinking,” he said. “Don’t you ever give that restless mind of yours a vacation, young man?” inquired Grandma Sharpless, looking up from her game of solitaire. “All that is good for it. Perhaps you’d like to share this problem, and thus relieve me of part of the responsibility.” “Do go on, if you’ve found anything exciting,” besought Mrs. Clyde, glancing up with her swift, interrogating smile. “The paper seemed unusually dull to me.” “Because you didn’t read quite deep enough into it, possibly.” He raised the journal, folded it neatly to a half-page, and holding it before his eyes, began smoothly:— “Far, far away, as far as your conscience will let you believe, in the Land of Parables—” “Wait a minute,” interrupted Mr. Clyde. “That ‘Land of Parables’ sounds as if we were going to have some Improving Information.” He regarded his friend and adviser with a twinkling eye. “Ought the children to miss this?” “That is for you to decide later,” said the Health Master gravely. And he resumed:— “Far, far away, as far as conscience will let you believe, in the Land of Parables, there once stood a prosperous and self-contented city. Men lived therein by rule and rote. Only what their fathers before them had believed and received did they believe and receive. ‘As it hath been, so it is now and ever must and shall be,’ was the principle whereby their lives were governed. Therefore they endured, without hope as without complaint, the depredations of a hideous Monster who preyed upon them unceasingly. “So loathsome was this Monster that the very thought of him was held to taint the soul. His name was sealed away from the common speech. Only the boldest men spoke of him, and then in paraphrases and by circumlocutions. Fouled, indeed, was the fame of the woman who dared so much as confess to a knowledge of his existence.