“Ah, really, Miss Helen,” spoke the Jook at last, “this is a most unexpected pleasure.  Ah, really, you know, I mean—­”

It was not very lucid, but it was all I needed, and I replied suavely, “Oh yes, I understand.  You never asked me, and never had the faintest idea of doing so.  Otherwise, we should not have been such good friends.  All I want is to enforce the fact on Kitty’s mind.—­And now, Kitty, my dear, if you are quite satisfied on this point, I will dress and go down stairs.—­Don’t disturb yourselves, pray!” for both of them showed signs of moving.  “You can finish your conversation to much better advantage where you are, and this little excitement has quite cured my headache.”

I wonder how in the world they ever took up the dropped stitches in that conversation?  They did it somehow, though, for when they reappeared Kitty was the prettiest possible picture of shy, blushing, shamefaced happiness, while the Jook was fairly beaming with pride and delight.  It was a case of true love at last:  there was no doubt about that—­such love as few would have believed that a flighty little creature like Kitty was capable of feeling.  It was wonderful to see how quickly all her little wiles and coquetries fell off under its influence, just as the rosy, fluttering leaves of the spring fall off when the fruit pushes its way.  I don’t believe it had ever struck her before that there was anything degrading in this playing fast and loose with men’s hearts which had been her favorite pastime, or in beguiling them by feigning a passion of which she had never felt one thrill.  It was not until Love the magician had touched her heart that the honest and loyal little Kitty that lay at the bottom of all her whims and follies was developed.  The very sense of unworthiness which she felt in view of the Jook’s straightforward and manly ardor was the surest guarantee for the perfection of her cure.

A truce to moralizing.  Kitty does not need it, nor the Jook either.  If he is not proud of the bright little American bride he is to take back with him to the “tight little isle” of our forefathers, why, appearances are “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”

HENRIETTA H. HOLDICH.

COMMUNISM IN THE UNITED STATES.

Nowhere in the history of the world have we any example of successful communism.  The ancient Cretan and Lacedemonian experiments, the efforts of the Essenes and early Christians, the modified communities of St. Anthony and several orders of monks, the schemes of the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, together with all the experiments of modern times, have proved essential failures.  Setting out with ideas of perfection in the social state, and undertaking nothing less than the entire abolition of the miseries of the world, the communists of all times have lived in a condition the least ideal that can be imagined.  The usual course of socialistic communities has been