" "Set your heart at ease, Maud; the plums are deliciousmuch the best we ever had, and we are rather famous for them, you know.

Nathaniel Plum was not a man to be easily startled, but there was something so unusual about the proceedings in which he was as yet playing a blind part that he forgot to smoke, which was saying much.

The cultivated plums, damsons and gages are varieties of the Prunus domestica, the cultivated plum tree.

THE COMMON PLUM-TREE.This is the parent of our fruit of this name.

" "Plums are stone fruit," he observed stonily, "and you were allocated one hundredweight of sugar for your soft fruit, I believe?" One really gets very tired of people who go on harping on the same thing over and over again.

Sugar-plums are a very innocent diet; and conserves of a much colder nature than your common pickles.

The few "plums" of the profession are the inspectorships of the Government and of the more important education committees.

None but true patriots would have the heart to try it, I thought, and I meditated writing to Washington, where the quadrennial purification of the civil service was just then in progress,under a new broom,to secure, if possible, a few bits of recognition ("plums" is the technical term, I believe) for men so deserving.

The cultivated plums, damsons and gages are varieties of the Prunus domestica, the cultivated plum tree.