reached them when she heard shrill voices arising behind her, and she looked round thinking that the menaced hostilities had broken out. But she saw that two tall, black-looking policemen had arrived, and that one of them was talking to the little ragged boys.

Mac seemed to be answer

ing him with fluent defiance; but Aylmer suddenly jumped up, and, fleeing towards her, still clutching his box of chocolate, grasped her skirts with a hand which left its mark, and began to roar. The policeman, following him, said: "Beg pardon, Miss, but did you know them children was making free with your hamper of sweets?"

"They're my nephews," she said, and Aylmer made no attempt to repudiate the connection. So the policeman withdrew, apologetic and rather scandalized. "That was a quare start," he said to his comrade as they walked away. "A one of them was eatin' that rapacious I thought he was starvin', and I come as near as anythin' takin' him in charge. They hadn't the look of belongin' to anybody respectable." The constables were hardly out of sight when there appeared on the scene Lambert May, bringing with him the Doctor, and several men with ropes and poles, and Father Daly, and quite a crowd of children and women, some of whom had already begun to say that the poor little crathurs' mother was to be pitied that night, when she heard what had happened them. But their Aunt Amy really was to be pitied, in a less tragical degree, when she had to explain that nothing had happened to them at all. For she felt ashamed of the commotion roused by her false alarm, and did not like to think how foolish she must appear to Lambert May. Altogether it did seem hard that she should have given up a garden party, and spoiled her new gown, only to frighten and make herself ridiculous, and to be disowned with contempt by her relations. Moreover, her very disreputable-looking nephews proceeded to behave so badly

that she felt quite abashed, and they talked so strangely about savages and Saint Brigid that she almost thought they must be demented. Mac especially, being hungry and fractious, stamped furiously in a puddle when requested to put on his boots and stockings, and declared that he wasn't going to be ordered about by people who came bothering and pretending they were everybody's aunts. His good humor was not restored until he had been invited thoroughly to inspect Lambert May's highly polished roadster, and even to sit on the saddle and see how entirely out of reach the pedals were. By the time that she had helped him to lace his boots, it is true, he had begun to take a more tolerant view of his aunt's character. Yet when he said good-by to her at the gate, he gave her a bit of presumably mortifying intelligence.

"The man with the bicycle thinks you are very horrid," he said.

"How do you know?" she asked. "Because," said Mac, "when he was showing it to me, I asked him if he thought you were his aunt, and he said: 'Oh, no, indeed, she's not my aunt, thank goodness!' But next time I see him I'll tell him you aren't as nasty as most aunts, unless," Mac continued, interrogatively, you maybe aren't one at all, and only letting on, the same way that we were about the savages?"

66

There was one person, however, to whom the afternoon seemed ending in a sudden blaze of joy. Matty Shanahan just about that time was rushing homewards through shade and shine at the top of her speed. Such a pace did she attain that Rosy McClonissy, following with the little goat in tow, and daring not be left behind, tugged and panted, and called injunctions to stop, and to come on. Matty never heeded. For she was on her way to give her mother the wonderful golden sixpenny bit that the lovely young ladysome sort of Quality or Saint-had run after her to put into her hand.

been a vast transformation, not only in the introduction of pictures in the daily press, but in the way the papers are managed all through, and in the immensely increased cost of the management. Nor are readers what they were. Then, men and women were common who swore by one paper, and they'd no more think of taking some other paper of a different stripe of politics than they would of drinking milk on lobster. Now a man takes this or that paper because it happens to be convenient or cheap; and maybe because there is no one paper he thoroughly trusts to do his thinking, as used to be the case. That a paper supports a political faith opposed to his own doesn't count with the modern reader. Where a man takes more than one paper he is apt to buy those of different politics purposely in order the better to get the drift of things, or simply to enjoy the thrust and parry.

"The editorial opinion on political movements as expressed in the papers doesn't have the weight with readers it once did. Journalism's greatest power to-day lies in the dissemination of fact rather than in the advocacy of policy. I don't mean to imply that the editorial page has not great influence, but only that this influence seems to be less marked than formerly. We go to the newspapers because they give facts or alleged facts, and an alert modern newspaper does not let its politics greatly injure its news. It gives both sides, and, indeed, prides itself on the impartiality of its reports. You can thus draw your own conclusions independent of editorial opinion if you choose.

"To men in office the attitude of the press is now and always has been a matter of considerable concern; not that they care very much what any particular editor thinks, but because of the controlling relation that public opinion is understood. to exert over the public press. The papers reflect with more or less accuracy the way the people are thinking, and for this reason most of the politicians and officials in general watch them very closely. Some public men keep scrap-books of newspaper clippings. But, whether they preserve a record or not, the trend of popular opinion is a matter of keenest interest to all of them.

"There are statesmen, however, who seem to get more in touch with the people

through their private correspondence than in any other way. Letters have weight with all our officials, from the humblest to the highest. Even if you write to the President of the United States, your letter has attention. He may never see it, but some one reads it and it is at least counted. It is the same with letters sent to Congressmen. Either personally or through his secretary a Congressman knows the contents of all the letters he receives. If the secretary says, ' Here are two letters giving you particular fits,' the Congressman wants to know whom they are from and where they are from.

"He thinks that, while he has heard from only two men, as many thousands may hold the same opinions, but haven't taken the trouble to write; and such letters have a decided influence on his course. In the same way, editors and publishers are a good deal concerned about the letters written them by their readers. A newspaper both creates public opinion and is largely regulated by it. The papers, of course, want to be popular-want to sell; and there's nothing a publisher is more sensitive to than the criticisms of readers. If the day's mail brings three fault-finding letters, it makes the publisher nervous. It's not just those three writers that he cares about, but he is fearful that they represent the opinions of a small army of readers.

"The enormous appetite the public has for periodical literature seems astonishing, but it is perfectly natural. One of the strongest traits in the human mind is curiosity. We wake up in the morning. and we are curious to know what has happened the day before. The newspaper habit is the result of our attitude of inquiry toward all mankind; it is just the same as is expressed in the words with which we greet a friend-How do you do?' 'How goes it?' How are all the folks?' 'What's the news down your way?' Buying a newspaper is our method of taking the world by the hand and saying, How goes it?' That greeting is extended through the newspaper to our neighbors, to our home country, and to all nations; we say, 'How do you do?' to President McKinley and to Queen Victoria and to all the other powers and personages. If anything has happened to them, the paper informs us about it. If we don't find