"I shall have to stop now," I said, "evening is coming on--I shall have to be going," and I whistled for David. He came running across the grass, one hand full of hollyhocks. "Oh, my stars, David!" I exclaimed, "what have you been doing?" "Never mind," said the lady, "you know you have been helping yourself to things, too," and she rose and came over. "Oh, there I am," she said lightly, looking at what I had done. "No, indeed," I hastened to assure her, "that isn't you--yet; so far it is a composition in pink and green, but you aren't in it. When I put in the sunlit background, then David comes, you know, and then when I put a gentle repose in every line of the figure, and a dreamy, tender sweetness in the face, then I will be painting the real spirit of the garden--don't you see?" And then, oh, my heart, she smiled again, but this time such a smile as no man deserves twice--and stooped and kissed David. "He says he wants to get me for his painting, David. Shall I let him?" "Why, hasn't he gotten you already?" asked David, tying the hollyhocks with grass. "Yes, I think he has," she answered slowly. "David, you are a little Love," she added. "Yes, isn't he, though!" I said. --Wilma I. Ball. III. The Humorous Story The humorous story is but the other side of the society story. It is not a thorough study in realism either, for then it would be sad for a large part--as George Meredith has shown us; but it is rather a course of events more or less skilfully arranged to produce a laugh. There is transposition here, suppression there, exaggeration in many places. The reader joins the author in the conspiracy to concoct fun, and as a result both have a good time. The refinement and taste of these narratives range all the long distance from the vulgar horse-play and impossible dialect of the newspaper "funny page" to the genuine humor of Mrs. Stowe's "Sam Lawson" fireside stories and the quiet pleasantness of Sarah Orne Jewett's character sketches in "The Country of the Pointed Firs." Mark Twain began the foundation of that distinction which he now has as the greatest of modern humorists in his early volume of sketches, entitled "The Celebrated Jumping Frog." [The fableau]