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UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE.

‘’Tis the gallery have got to sing, all the world knows,’ said Mr. Penny. ‘Why, souls, what's the use o' the ancients spending scores of pounds to build galleries if people down in the lowest depths of the church sing like that at a moment's notice?’

‘Really, I think we useless ones had better march out of church, fiddles and all!’ said Mr. Spinks, with a laugh which, to a stranger, would have sounded mild and real. Only the initiated body of men he addressed could understand the horrible bitterness of irony that lurked under the quiet words ‘useless ones,’ and the ghastliness of the laughter apparently so natural.

‘Never mind! Let ’em sing too—’twill make it all the louder—hee, hee!’ said Leaf.

‘Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf! Where have you lived all your life?’ said grandfather William sternly.

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