" In Hendrik on the Hudson, fifty miles from New York, there was, winter before last, a certain "patent seamless.

The Wimples, of whom Sally is the last, were among the oldest and most respectable of Hendrik families.

Sally's father, Mr. Paul Wimple, had been a publisher in good standing, and formerly did a flourishing business in New York; but seven years ago he failed, and so, quite penniless, his health sadly broken, his cheerfulness and energy all gone with his fortunes, without heart for any new beginning, he returned to Hendrik, his native place.

They called his shop "The Hendrik Athenaeum and Circulating Library," and all the county subscribed; for, at first, the Wimples were the fashionable charity, "the Wimples were always so very respectable, you know," and Sally was such a sweet girl that really it was quite an interesting case.

The first thing she did was to disappoint her friends, and shock the decencies of Hendrik; for it had been agreed on all sides that "the poor dear thing would take on dreadfully, or else fret herself into fits, or perhaps fall into one of them clay-cold, corpsy swoons, like old Miss Dunks has regular every 'revival.'"

Now I believe it was not generally known in Hendrik that Miss Wimple had narrowly escaped being a very pretty girl.

In her father's lifetime, she had sought, on occasions of unwonted cheerfulness, to please him with certain charming tricks of attire; and sometimes, with only a white rose-bud gleaming through the braided shadows of her hair, lighted herself up as with a star; then, not a carping churl, not an envious coquette in Hendrik, but confessed to the prettiness of Sally Wimple.

She waited for customers, but they seldom came,often, from opening to window-barring, not one; for the unwilting little martyr of the Hendrik Athenaeum and Circulating Library had made herself a highly disapproved-of Miss Wimple by her ungrateful and contumacious behavior at her father's death, even if the hard and sharp black lines of that scrimped delaine had not sufficed to turn the current of admiration, interest, and custom.

All the good society of Hendrik said the Splurges were a charming family, a most attached and happy family, lovely in their lives and in death not to be divided, and that they looked sweetly in hoops.

Still it wore the aspect of a lyric match, and the hearts of humbler Hendrik lovers set it to music.

Simon Blount was his name, and he was a young farmer of five hundred acres in first-rate cultivation, with barns, stables, and offices in complete repair,a well-stocked, well-watered place, with "all the modern improvements," and convenient to the Hendrik branch of the New York and Bunker Hill railroad.

Simon and Sally were children when that happened, and since then they had grown up together in the closest family intimacy, interrupted only by Sally's winter schooling in New York, and renewed every summer by her regular seasons at Hendrik.

When Simon took trips to New York, he "stopped" at Mr. Wimple's, and Sally's summer home in Hendrik was always "Aunt Phoebe's," as she had been taught to call Simon's mother.

Once, when the talk at the Splurge house descended for a moment from its lofty flights to describe a few eccentric mocking circles around the Hendrik Athenaeum and Miss Wimple, Madeline said, "If you have sense or decency, be silent;the girl is true and brave, every way better taught than we, and prouder than she knows.

I will sustain myself independently; you know that I ply a nimble needle, and that my handiwork will be in esteem among the richer folks of Hendrik.

" About that time hoops came in, and the Splurge girls flourished the first that appeared in Hendrik.

She remembered, too, that she had often reproached herself for her irrational prejudice against the man,that she was forever finding something false and sinister in the face that every one else said was eminently handsome, and ugly dissonance in the voice that all Hendrik praised for its music.

A superannuated and bedridden woman, who had nursed her mother in her last illness, lived on the northern outskirts of the town; and she must cross the long covered bridge that spanned the Hendrik River to take a basket full of comforting trifles to old Hetty that night.

She was alone, but feared nothing,the streets of Hendrik at night were familiar to her

If you are indifferent for yourself, you shall not toss me to the geese of Hendrik.

Dare to follow me, and the geese of Hendrik shall have you.

With new illus. by Hendrik Willem van Loon.

VAN LOON, HENDRIK WILLEM.

Written & illustrated by Hendrik Willem van Loon.

"My great ancestor, the genuine original Myndert, came over as cook with Hendrik Hudson.