I HOPE that name pleases you, my dear Pansies, and I wish each one of you had a copy of the book to which it belongs. Let me describe the one which now lies on my desk. A lovely colored binding, I don't know whether the artists call it "olive" or "old gold" or "crushed strawberry" or what. It isn't exactly _any_ color, but reminds me of sunshine and autumn leaves. There is a medallion in gold on the upper half, and the monogram of the publishers on the lower right-hand corner. There are three hundred and eighty-three pages of good clear print, and some excellent pictures. It is a book which retails for one dollar and fifty cents; and now comes my special bit of news which ought to rejoice your hearts. Every subscriber to THE PANSY who is also a member of the P. S. can secure it for eighty-five cents, by sending that amount to D. Lothrop & Co. with their order! As for the things which it talks about, of course you know that in so many pages many interesting topics can be handled; for instance, "Christmas Cards," and "Newspapers," and "Camphor," and "Umbrellas," and "Combs," and "Thunderstorms," (!) and "Brooms," and "Lace," and a dozen other things. The fact is, if you take one article, no matter how simple, and seat yourself in a corner to think about it, you can get up twenty questions, right away, which you wish somebody would answer for you. Well, this book answers those very questions. Now I am going to copy for you a bit right out of the heart of a story in it, which I know will delight the boys; the name of the story is: "TALKING BY SIGNALS." When boys live some distance apart, it is pleasant to be able to communicate with each other by means of signals. Many and ingenious have been the methods devised by enthusiastic boys for this purpose. But it can be brought much nearer perfection than has yet been done, by means of a very simple system. At the age of fourteen, I had an intimate friend who lived more than a mile away, but whose home was in plain sight from mine. As we could not always be together when we wished, we invented a system of signalling requiring a number of different colored flags; but we were not quite satisfied with it, for we could send but few communications by its use. Then, when we came to test it, we found the distance was too great to allow of the different colors being distinguished. The white one was plainly visible. It seemed necessary, therefore, that only white flags should be used. We studied over the problem long and hard, with the following result. We each made five flags by tacking a small stick, eighteen inches long, to both ends of a strip of white cloth, two feet long, by ten inches wide. Then we nailed loops of leather to the side of our fathers' barns, so that, when the sticks were inserted in them, the flags would be in the following positions: [Illustration]