ers have left so much to the imagination and imagination is so rare a gift here then the writer of fiction may be of use to the s an there is a chronicle written in tolerable latin and in it a chapter where every sentence holds a ct here is told with harsh the strange history of a pair who lived and died four hundred years ago and lie now as in that stem page as in a rock thus living or dead fate is still unjust to them for if i can but show you what lies below that dry s words you will correct the indifference of centuries and give those two sore tried souls a place in your he rt � for a day it was past the middle of the century louis xi was sovereign of france edward iv was king of england and philip the � k od having by force and cunning his and broken her heart reigned this many years in holland where our tale begins and us wife lived in the little town of he and in cloth silk brown holland and above all in leather a material highly valued by the people because it would stand twenty years wear and turn an ordinary knife no small virtue in a of that century in which folk were so of their steel even at dinner a man would leave his meat awhile and you his neighbour on a very moderate difference q the couple were well to do and would have be n free from all earthly care but for nine when these were coming into the id one per each was hailed with and the saints were thanked not with and when parents and children were all young together the latter were looked upon as lovely little invented by heaven for the amusement joy and evening solace of people in business but as the olive branches shot up and the parents grew older and saw with their own eyes the fate of large families and care mingled with their love they belonged to a singularly wise and people in holland reckless parents were as rare as children so now when the huge loaf came in on a gigantic looking like a fortress in its moat and the tour of the table once made seemed to have melted away and would look at one another and say who is to find bread for them all when we are gone at this observation the younger ones needed all their filial respect to keep their dutch countenances for in their opinion dinner and supper came by nature like sunrise and sunset and so long as that should travel round the earth so long must the vn loaf go round their family circle and set in their only to rise again in family oven but the remark awakened the natural of the elder boys and being often repeated set several of the family thinking some of them good thoughts some ill thoughts according to the nature of the the children grow so this table will be too small we cannot afford it replied answering not his words but his thought after the manner of women their anxiety for the future took at times a less dismal but more turn the free had their pride as well as the and these two could not bear that any of their blood should go down in the after their so by prudence and self they managed to clothe all the little bodies and feed all the great mouths and yet put by a small to meet the future and as it grew and grew they felt a pleasure the for himself knows not one day the eldest boy but one aged nineteen came to his mother and with that outward composure which has so some persons as to the real nature of this people begged her to with his father to send hun to and m the and the hearth place him with a merchant it is the way of life that likes me merchants are wealthy i am g ood at numbers good mother take my part in this and i shall ever be as i am now your threw up her hands with dismay and incredulity what leave i what is one street to me more than another if i can leave the folk of i can surely leave the stones what i quit your poor ther now he is no longer young mother if i can leave you i can leave him what leave your poor brothers and that love you so dear there are enough in the house without me what mean you who is more thought of than you stay have i spoken sharp to you have i been unkind to you never that i know of and if you had you should never hear of it from me mother said gravely but the tear was in his eye it all lies in a word and nothing can change my mind there will be one mouth less for you to feed there now see what my tongue has done said and the next moment she began to cry for she saw her first young bird on the edge of the nest trying his wings to fly into the world had a calm strong will and she knew he never wasted a word it ended as nature has willed all such discourse shall end with a face so long and as it had never been seen before and a heart like granite that afternoon at supper there was one mouth less looked at s chair and wept bitterly on this shouted roughly and to the children it wider can t ye sit wider and turned his head away over the back of his seat awhile and was silent was launched and never cost them another penny but to fit him out and place him in 