“The day after the hound disappeared I set out to find him, and now you tell me that one of the dogs which my father considered able to battle with a wolf has been killed by the thrust of a deer’s horn!”

AVERAGE

A very common word, to-be-sure, and well understood as to its application.  But after fair translation of its old French body—­“aver”—­into English, and only “horse” is found, and the word becomes “horsage,” the change tends to confusion.  None the less, “horsage” and “average” are identical, since in the old-time French an “aver” was a horse.  It was also a horse in the Scotch dictionaries, and in one of Burns’ poems, “A Dream,” he alludes to a horse as a “noble aiver.”

In olden times in Europe a tenant was bound to do certain work for the lord of the manor—­largely in carting grain and turf—­horse-work; and in the yearly settlement of accounts the just proportion of the large and small work performed was estimated according to the work done by “avers” (horses); hence our common word “average.”

[This Story began in No. 43.]

LELIA’S HERO: 

or,

“We Girls and Boys in Florida.”

by ELSIE LEIGH WHITTLESEY,

Author of “My Brother and I,”
“A Home in the Wilds,” etc., etc.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Gloomy Forebodings.

“Oh, please, do hush, Bess!  You chatter so I can’t hear myself think,” said Lelia to Bess, one afternoon, about two weeks after their early morning visit to the suffering turtles, as the dear innocent was telling Phil some childish nonsense about a great snake Ben had once seen in the swamp, that was as long as a ship’s mast and had a mouth big enough to swallow a giant.  “We are going home to-morrow, and I don’t see how you can laugh and tell such horrid stories when that’s to happen to us so soon.”

And she sighed dismally and looked out at the sea as if she never expected to behold it again.

“But I am not going home,” replied Phil.  “I’m going to stay with Mr. Herdic, and he has promised to take Thad and me to Key West and the sponging-grounds before we return home, or before Thad does, for I never expect to return to Oakdale.”

“Then only Uncle Aldis and Aunt Marion and Bess and I have got to go home?” she replied.

“That’s all,” said Phil, cheerfully.

“Well, I think you might be sorry, or pretend that you are, anyway, if only for look’s sake,” tartly rejoined Lelia, with another wandering glance at the sea.

“Oh, I am sorry!” said Phil, with honest quickness; “but still I’d rather stay here than go back to Oakdale, where nobody likes me, and I’d never amount to a hill of beans.”

“But I liked you when you were at Oakdale,” gravely reminded Lelia.

And the tone in which she said it smote Phil to the heart.

“So did I,” calmly avowed Bess.  “I did really, Phil.”