Latinities
In a country cottage (whose windows look on a garden very bright with chrysanthemum and gladiolus) live an old couple who are great readers of the newspaper, especially in war- time. The man is ninety-four and the woman eighty-four. They have adopted the air-warden as a general friend and adviser in the common affairs of life. On the latest visit they asked if she could tell them something. She, in reply to this mysterious and diffident question, said that she would try ; and thus emboldened the old lady said : " Could you tell us what they mean by this opmism and pemisism? We keep reading about them, and don't rightly know what they mean." The old man, who came back from China in a sailing ship about seventy years ago, delights .to read the Parliamentary debates and keep quite up to date in his knowledge of the changes in the Navy. He is certainly not among the " pemisists " :'t the present juncture. The sun shines, the garden is bright and the old age pension keeps him alive. The toil of washing and cooking and such domestic duties and a bad leg leave the old lady a little less cheerful.
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