“And mine,” added Katie, at which young Waldo gave her a grateful glance.  Then he joined with her in breaking the hush that had fallen on the others.  “Stephen,” she said, “now for your story.  Do you think you are coming off scot-free?”

“I thought we had performed our parts,” he said, turning to Elizabeth with a smile.

“Mistress Royal has already told her story,” cried Waldo, “There’s no escape for you.”

“Escape would be difficult now, I confess.”

“So begin.”

He began obediently, but fortune was kinder than he had expected, for he had not fairly started when Kit cried out,—­

“A breeze!  Here it comes.  Heads to larboard!” And down went Archdale’s and those of the two ladies with him as the sail was shifted and the boat began to skim the water before the breeze which freshened every minute.  Soon they had gained the cove where they were to land, and Archdale’s story was never finished.

* * * * *

THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN.

BY ERNEST NUSSE.

The census of 1880 fixed the juvenile population of the United States at 20,000,000, of whom 10,158,954 were boys and 9,884,705 were girls.  “From a political point of view,” says the eminent philanthropist, Mr. Elbridge T. Gerry, “the future of the nation depends on the physical and intellectual education of its children, whose numbers increase every year, and who will soon constitute the sovereign people.  From the moral and social point of view, the welfare of society imperatively demands that the atmosphere in which they live, and the treatment that they receive from those intrusted with their care or custody, shall be such as to establish in them habits of industry, of sobriety, of honesty, and good conduct.  For injurious treatment of a child, inasmuch as it tends to result in the distortion of its physical and moral nature, constitutes an offence whose importance seriously effects the public order.”  But what is to be understood by cruel treatment?  It consists in every act of omission or of commission which causes or procures physical injury or death.  It is hardly necessary to observe that this definition must be limited to its practical meaning, rather than interpreted in its broader, philosophical sense.  We must leave out of the question the results of improper or imperfect educational training and discipline.  It is doubtless a cause of harm to a delicate and nervous child to force the development of its intelligence; a harsh word hastily uttered by parents may leave an ineffaceable impression upon a sensitive organization; severity degenerates into injustice when it confounds a peevish act, the result of physical disorder, with an act of deliberate disobedience.  The weakness which resigns its authority In order to spare itself the care of a child’s education engenders for life the spirit of insubordination.  The humiliating and unjust reproach, the stinging sarcasm, wound the