HE brook has forgotten me, but I have not fo

gotten the brook. Many faces have been mi red since in the flowing water, many feet hav aded in the sandy shallow. I wonder if any on se can see it in a picture before the eyes as I ca ight and vivid as the trees suddenly shown at nigł - a great flash of lightning. All the leaves an anches and the birds at roost are visible during th sh. It is barely a second; it seems much longe emory, like the lightning, reveals the pictures i e mind. Every curve, and shore, and shallow is a miliar now as when I followed the winding strea often. When the mowing grass was at it ight you could not walk far beside the bank; ew so thick and strong and full of unbelliferou ants as to weary the knees. The life, as it wer the meadows seemed to crowd down toward th ook in summer to reach out and stretch toward th e-giving water. There the buttercups were talle d closer together, nails of gold driven so thickl at the true surface was not visible. Countless root is drew up the richness of the earth like miners i e darkness, throwing their petals of yellow or oadcast above them. With their fullness of leave e hawthorn bushes grow larger-the trees exten rther—and thus overhung with leaf and branch d closely set about by grass and plant, the broo sappeared only a little way off, and could not hav en known from a mound and hedge. It was lost i e plain of meads-the flowers alone saw its sparkl Hidden in those bushes and tall grasses, high in th ees and low on the ground, there were the nest happy birds. In the hawthorns blackbirds an rushes built, often overhanging the stream, and th

eeper concealed her treasure, having selected ollow by the bank so that the scythe should på er. Up in the pollard ashes and willows, he nd there, wood pigeons built. Doves cooed in t tle wooden inclosures where the brook curved a ost round upon itself. If there was a hollow e oak a pair of starlings chose it, for there w advantageous nook that was not seized on. Lo eside the willow stoles the sedge reedlings buil the ledges of the ditches, full of flags, moor he ade their nests. After the swallows had course ng miles over the meads to and fro, they rested o e tops of the ashes and twittered sweetly. Like th owers and grass, the birds were drawn toward th ook. They built by it, they came to it to drink; i e evening a grasshopper lark trilled in a hawthor ish. By night, crossing the footbridge, a star some nes shone in the water under foot. At morn an en the peasant girls came down to dip: their pat as worn through the mowing grass, and there wa flat stone let into the bank as a step to stand on hough they were poorly habited, without one line o rm or tint of color that could please the eye, ther something in dipping water that is Greekomeric-something that carries the mind home to imitive times. Always the little children came th them; they too loved the brook like the grass d the birds. They wanted to see the fishes dart ay and hide in the green flags; they flung daisies d buttercups into the stream to float and catch hile at the flags, and float again and pass away, e the friends of our boyhood, out of sight. Where ere was pasture roan cattle came to drink, and rses, restless horses, stood for hours by the edge der the shade of ash trees. With what joy the

e loved the brook.

Far down away from the roads and hamlets there

a small orchard on the very bank of the eam, and just before the grass grew too high walk through I looked in the enclosure to speak to owner. He was busy with his spade at a strip of den, and grumbled that the hares would not let alone, with all that stretch of grass to feed on. would the rooks, and the moor hens ran over and the water rats burrowed; the wood pigeons ld have the peas, and there was no rest from m all. While he talked and talked, far from the ect in hand, as aged people will, I thought how apple tree in blossom before us cared little ugh who saw its glory. The branches were in om everywhere, at the top as well as at the side,the top where no one could see them but the llows. They did not grow for human admira: that was not their purpose; that is our affair -we bring the thought to the tree. On a short nch low down the trunk there hung the weatherten and broken handle of an earthen-ware vessel; old man said it was a jug, one of the old folk's s, he often dug them up. Some were cracked, e nearly perfect; lots of them had been thrown to mend the lane. There were some chips among heaps of weeds yonder. These fragments were remains of Anglo-Roman pottery. Coins had 1 found-half a gallon of them-the children had most. He took one from his pocket, dug up : morning; they were of no value, they would ring. The laborers tried to get some ale for n, but could not; no one would take the little ss things. That was all he knew of the Cæsars: apples were in fine bloom now, weren't they?

cary march across the downs, for the lane, no amble-grown and full of ruts, was then a Roma ad. There were villas, and baths, and fortifica ns; these things you may read about in book ey are lost now in the hedges, under the flowerin ass, in the ash copses, all forgotten in the lane, an ong the footpath where the June roses will bloor ter the apple blossom has dropped. But jus ere the ancient military way crosses the brook ere grow the finest, the largest, the bluest, an st lovely for-get-me-nots that ever lover gathere his lady.

The old man, seeing my interest in the fragment pottery, wished to show me something of a differ kind lately discovered. He led me to a spo ere the brook was deep, and had somewhat under ned the edge. A horse trying to drink there had shed a quantity of earth into the stream and ex sed a human skeleton lying within a few inches of e water. Then I looked up the stream and rememed the buttercups and tall grasses, the flowers that wded down to the edge; I remembered the nests, 1 the dove cooing; the girls that came down to dip, : children who cast their flowers to float away. e wind blew the loose apple bloom and it fell in wers of painted snow. Sweetly the greenfinches re calling in the trees; afar the voice of the cuckoo ne over the oaks. By the side of the living water, water that all things rejoiced in, near to its gensound, and the sparkle of sunshine in it, had lain s sorrowful thing.

JEROME K. JEROME

JEROME KLAPKA JEROME, novelist, was born at alsall, England, in 1861. Early in life he had to ft for himself and became, after trying various ofessions, a journalist. In 1886, he published dle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow," and it jumped once to the forefront of popularity. Three years er came his most famous work, "Three Men in a at." This book is as much read to-day as when first appeared. The adventures of "The Three en in their trip up the Thames," "To say nothof Montmorency, the dog," will undoubtedly ase the blues from the overwrought minds of erations to come. His later books include Letters to Clorinda," ""Stories of the Town," and The Prude's Progress."

PLANS FOR THE TRIP

(From "Three Men in a Boat")

O, on the following evening, we again assembled, to discuss and arrange our plans. Harris said: Now, the first thing to settle is what to take th us. Now, you get a bit of paper and write wn, J., and you get the grocery catalogue, George, 1 somebody give me a bit of pencil, and then make out a list."

That's Harris all over-so ready to take the bur1 of everything himself, and put it on the backs other people.

He always reminds me of my poor Uncle Podger. 1 never saw such a commotion up and down a ise, in all your life, as when my Uncle Podger