on. And of course some of it we will color green, to put green pistachio-nuts on, and pink, to put bits of rose-leaves on. And we can take it while it is still pretty soft, and make little balls of it and dip each one in melted chocolate with the tip of a fork, and make lovely chocolate creams."

"Oh, Miss Betty, let me make those!" begged Mildred; and "Oh, Miss Betty, let me make pistachio creams!"; and "Oh, please, dear Miss Betty, let me make the nut creams!" begged the girls. Miss Betty laughed, and shook her head at them all. "The dining-room girls will finish these, all but the chocolate creams-those we will make to-morrow." So she took all the pans of fondant into the dining-room, and Mother Blair showed the girls there how to turn this plain white candy into colored bonbons, working on the marble slab; they were lovely when they were finished, and packed in boxes like the rest. Meanwhile, Miss Betty said they would make:

I cup of grated cocoanut from a package.
2 squares of chocolate, melted.

Let the sugar and water boil till it spins a thread. Beat the egg white stiff, and very slowly pour in the syrup while beating all the time; add the cocoanut, and then the melted chocolate. Drop on sheets of buttered paper in spoonfuls.

"If you want to have these like little biscuits, do not put in the chocolate; just put them on the paper after spreading it in shallow tins, and bake them till they are brown on top. I think it would be nice to make some of each."

When these were done and carried into the dining-room, Miss Betty said: "And now I will show you how I make my very own pinoche. When I have to earn my living, I shall do it by making this candy, and I'm sure in a very short time I'll be a millionaire." The girls laughed, and said they wanted to learn to get rich too.

PINOCHE

21⁄2 cups of brown sugar.

1⁄2 cup of cream.

Butter the size of an egg. 1⁄2 cup of chopped walnuts. 1⁄2 cup of chopped almonds. I teaspoonful of vanilla.

Boil the sugar, cream, and butter together twenty minutes; add the nuts and vanilla, and beat well; when

smooth and creamy, pour into buttered tins; when cool, cut in squares.

"It's just as well we have so many to work," said Mildred. "It takes lots of strength to beat this candy."

"Yes, we need Jack's strong arm," said Miss Betty, smiling. "To-morrow, we must get him to help. Now here is another kind of nut candy that is very nice indeed, and when you are all done with that pinoche, we will make this next."

NUT CREAMS

3 cups of light brown sugar. Whites of 2 eggs.

I cup of boiling water.
I cup of chopped nuts.

I teaspoonful of vanilla.

Boil the sugar and water, stirring and beating till the sugar is all dissolved; then let it boil without stirring till it spins a thread. Remove from the fire and let it stand on the table for just a moment, to be sure it has stopped boiling; then pour it over the stiff whites of the eggs, beating with a wire beater all the time; put in the vanilla while you are beating. When it is creamy and getting stiff, add the nuts, stir well, and spread on buttered paper. If you prefer, do not use vanilla, but almond flavoring, and add almonds instead of other

nuts.

"Now, girls, just one more kind and that will be enough, I am sure. To-morrow we will change work, and I will teach all this to the other girls, while you make salted almonds and tie boxes; I'm sure we shall sell all we can make." "This candy will be worth a dollar a pound!" said Mildred.

"At least that," said Miss Betty, laughing; "only we won't ask quite that much, I think. Now this is the last recipe."

MARK TWAIN AND THE IMMORTAL TOM THE last time I saw Mark Twain was at his country-place in Connecticut one fall day, something more than a year before his death. Before I left, he told me he was to give a reading the day following of some of his own work.

"I don't know what to give 'em," he said. “I can't remember anything funny I 've done, and it's something funny they 'll want."

"Read them the 'Invalid's Story,'" I advised. "I laugh over that regularly every year."

His eyes twinkled.

"Good idea!

read that myself in many a year

it's a funny one, eh?"

.

I have n't you 're sure

I was quite sure, and we both laughed as I recalled several of the incidents of the story. As I walked homeward, I looked back at the turn in the road. He was still standing in the doorway of his big Italian villa, a small, alert figure in his white suit, his fine head with its thick, wavy white hair showing plainly against the dark background. I waved a good-by, to which he responded-I little realized how final a good-by it

was.

Now, Stormfield looks sad and deserted. The weeds grow high, the fountain in the little garden is empty of water, doors and windows are closed. Samuel L. Clemens is gone, though it is difficult for any one who knew him to believe it, any one, at least, who had not seen him during the last and failing months; for he was life incarnate, keen, quick, vigorous of bearing, eternally amusing, forever saying something in that famous drawl of his which set you laughing.

As far back as 1852, when Clemens was but seventeen, that drawl attracted notice. It was in New Orleans, where the young Sam was stranded. Looking about for work, he decided to become a river pilot. So he went to Horace Bixby, the finest pilot on the river. This is what Bixby says about him:

"One day a tall, angular, hoosier-like young fellow, whose limbs appeared to be fastened with leather hinges, entered the pilot-house, and in a peculiar, drawling voice, said:

'Good mawnin', sir. Don't you want to take a peart young fellow and teach him how to be er river pilot?''

After the bargain had been struck, Bixby asked:

"What makes you pull your words that way?" "I don't know, mister,' returned Clemens. 'You'll have to ask my ma. She pulls hern, too." "

Nine years of river life followed, and Clemens "learned the river" as few ever have learned it. He never had an accident, and for two and a half years was a master pilot, taking some of the best boats up and down the perilous stream. The outbreak of the Civil War stopped the work.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was of pure southern blood. His father, John Marshall Clemens, was a Virginian. His mother, a Miss Lambdon, came from Kentucky, and Sam was born November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri.

But there was nothing sectional about Twain. He belonged to the whole of America, not only by sympathy and understanding, but through actual experience. Half his young manhood was passed in the wild west. When he was city editor for the "Territorial Enterprise," of Virginia City, Nevada, he was kept busy writing up stage robberies, shooting affairs, lucky strikes, raids, all the thrilling incidents of life on the border. He had himself been a prospector, and an unlucky one, missing millions more than once by a hair's-breadth. It was just as well for him and for the world, because if he had struck it rich, then "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and the other immortal books would probably never have been written.

Clemens got into an altercation with a rival editor, and challenged this man to a duel. Nothing came of the challenge, but the new law in Nevada forbade dueling, and Clemens had to leave the State in a hurry. He went to San Francisco. Here he soon became an associate of Bret Harte on the famous “Californian,” making one of the group of writers all of whom became known the world over, such as Joaquin Miller, Charles Warren Stoddard, and Prentice Mulford. Bret Harte speaks of Twain as having a striking appearance: "He had the curly hair, the aquiline nose, and even the aquiline eye-an eye so eagle-like that a second lid would not have surprised me of an unusual and dominant nature. His eyebrows were very thick and bushy. His dress was careless, and his general manner one of supreme indifference to surroundings and circumstances."

"This is a better description than Bixby's, for