I hope the question of the S.L. & S.S. will now be dropped; it is too painful.  If you insist on continuing the discussion I shall decline to answer the letter, so there!

  Yours,
  H.

But Petherton refused to be drawn.

* * * * *

From a Church appeal:—­

    “A recent collection revealed that, of 179 coins put in the plate,
    176 were coppers, whilst not more than 15 people could have
    contributed anything above one shilling.”

The person who took the twelve silver coins by mistake will, we hope, return them next Sunday.

* * * * *

=THE SHERWOOD FORESTERS.=

  Deep in the greenwood year by year
    Bold ROBIN HOOD, a knightly ghost,
    Has eased the purse that bulged the most
  And stalked the wraiths of Rufford deer;

  And, as the centuries speed away,
    Has seen his oak and birk-land shrink,
    Where teeming cities on its brink
  Crowd in on Sherwood of to-day.

  But still each year the outlaw-king,
    By Normanton and Perlethorpe spire,
    Has watched the beeches’ emerald fire
  Flare upward in the leaping spring;

  Each heather-time has found his own
    Eyrie of rest where Higger Tor
    Shimmers in purple as before
  KING COEUR-DE-LION held his throne.

  And Foresters away “out there,”
    Sons of his sons, have surely seen
    A figure clad in Lincoln green
  Glide by them swiftly, thin as air;

  And, yarning in the creepy dark,
    Have told of arrows, cloth-yard long,
    Whistling before them clean and strong,
  Of Huns that got them, pierced and stark;

  How when their line is making good,
    In charge or trench, as Sherwoods can,
    Soft-footed, ever in the van,
  Stalks the bold ghost of ROBIN HOOD.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Mrs. Jones (suspiciously, to Jones, who is kept on strict rations).  “SOMEBODY HAS EATEN FIDO’S DINNER.”]

* * * * *

=THE SECRETS OF HEROISM.=

“Don’t talk about heroism,” said Sergeant William Bingley, “until you know what it is—­and isn’t.

“There were two men in my platoon over there that I’d match against any other two in the British, Allied, or Enemy armies for the biggest funks on earth; two boys from the same town, as unlike as cross-bred puppies, but cowards to the ankles.

“They were the only two that didn’t volunteer for a listening picket one night, and I felt so ashamed of them that I decided to mention it.

“‘You nickel-plated, glass-lined table-ornament,’ I said to Ruggles when I found him alone, ’aren’t you ashamed to form a rear rank alone with Jenks every time you’re asked to do anything?’

“I knew they hated each other, and I thought I’d draw him, but he hadn’t a word for himself.