Merry Christmas!"Or, when at home, and that extremely bony lad, in the thin summer coat, chatters to you, from the snow on the front-stoop, about the courage he has taken from Christmas Eve to ask you for enough to get a meal and a night's-lodginghow differently from your ordinary style does a something soft in your breast impel you to treat him.

Lusty Labour, with tired stoop, Levels low, at every swoop, Armfuls of ripe-coloured corn, Yellow as the hair of morn; And his helpers track him close, Laying it in even rows, On the furrow's stubbly ridge; Nearer to the poppied hedge.

De King's chillens can't stoop ter any sech decepshuns.

Only in one of these canvases, a counterfeit of Miss Evelyn Ramsay, born a Ramsay of Blenheim, that had married the common great-great-grandfather of both the colonel and PatriciaMajor Orlando Musgrave, an aide-de-camp to General Charles Lee in the Revolution,Rudolph Musgrave found, or seemed to find, dear likenesses to that demented seraph who was about to stoop to his unworthiness.

CHAPTER IV FROM 1816 TO 1919 Poor mites; you stiffen on a bench And stoop your curls to dusty laws; Your petal fingers curve and clench In slavery to parchment saws; You suit your hearts to sallow faces In sullen places:

You reckoned the Occidental stoop was pretty public and your talking to me might imply that you wanted my support?

" "Duveen called me on to the stoop.

On the stoop of one of these patrician residencesto use a word that has since come much into useI saw a fashionably pressed man, standing, picking his teeth, with the air of its master.

He would, when matters were not pressing, pause at a stoop to speak with mothers, and people in trouble soon began to acquire a habit of dropping in at his office to talk things over with the "Old Man."

Joe was brooding at his desk, brooding and writing, his dark face troubled, his big form quite stoop-shouldered.

This hawk, at least, is far past the stoop, however tempting the quarry.

Was it a dream or was it a fact, those two men who used to stoop over his baby crib, the one with the dark coat and the star upon his breast, whom he had been taught to call father, and the other one with the long red gown and the little twinkling eyes?

Marie had served the noble guests with pleasant alacrity, passing the rainbow-tinted trout caught as well as broiled by her own hand, and the luscious huckleberries in tasteful baskets of her own braiding, and Tontz Main de Fer, the chivalric companion and friend of La Salle, was moved like Geraint, served by Enid, "to stoop and kiss the dainty little thumb that crossed the trencher."

His reply was in substance as follows: "When standing on a stoop on the corner of Fourth and Congress streets, cogitating which way I should go, I was impressed by a voice within which directed my course to the Conference Room.

His Christs and Maries and martyrs of all sorts are composed, serious, courtly, well-fed personages, who, like people of the world accidentally overtaken by some tragic misfortune, do not stoop to distortions or express more than a grave surprise, a decorous sense of pain.

You are not, Kelly, of the common strain, That stoop their pride and female honor down To please that many-headed beast the town, And vend their lavish smiles and tricks for gain; By fortune thrown amid the actor's train, You keep your native dignity of thought; The plaudits that attend you come unsought, As tributes due unto your natural vein.

The mistress, and presumptive wife, of Woodvil Can never stoop so low to supplicate A man, her equal, to redress those wrongs, Which he was bound first to prevent; But which his own neglects have sanction'd rather, Both sanction'd and provok'd: a mark'd neglect, And strangeness fast'ning bitter on his love, His love which long has been upon the wane.

noon I drink for thirst, at night for fellowship, but, above all, I love to usher in the bashful morning under the auspices of a freshening stoop of liquor.

CHAPTER III A BELLE OF METTLE "For let me tell you, gentlemen, courage is the whole mystery of making love, and of more use than conduct is in war; for the bravest fellow in Europe may beat his brains out against the stubborn walls of a townbut "Women born to be controll'd, Stoop to the forward and the bold.

I should have known that, even if this insolent Russian dared to renew a former acquaintance, my daughter would never be so mean, never stoop so low as to welcome him, for a German girl would never throw away her honor on a Russian boor.

I picks wid both han's an' don't have to stoop much.

Can I ever stoop to the regimen of old age?

The line of bags upon the shore had grown into a double one, and it became necessary for the men, sometimes the white and sometimes the black, to stoop deeper and deeper into the water of the hold to reach the bags.

But I chose to take the risks, Sir; my genius could not stoop to measuring the costs of its flight.

Suddenly she saw him stoop and take something from his prostrate enemy.

Note also the holy-water stoup, squint, sedilia, and double piscina.

The sanctuary contains a sedile and piscina, and a stoup and a rougher piscina will be found in the nave.

Note also (1) stoup, (2) fine Perp. font, (3) large squint, (4) some good bench-ends, (5) medallions of ancient glass, with figures of St Thomas a Becket, St Dunstan, St Aldhelm, etc.

Externally should also be noted (1) the vigorous, though defaced, series of gargoyles above the S. porch, representing an amateur orchestra; (2) the remains of a stoup; (3) the curious chamber at the S.E. end of the S. transept.

There is also a fine groined vault to the S. porch (which has a good stoup outside).

It has a small church, retaining a fine stoup and some fragments of ancient glass in the E. window.

There is a stoup at the W. entrance, and another in the N. chapel.

door (note stoup).

It has a church which retains its old tower (with a gabled roof); but all other traces of antiquity have been obliterated, save for the remains of a stoup in the porch.

Note (1) stoup in porch, (2) the vigorously executed gargoyles, especially the pair over the porch, a mediaeval presentation of Darby and Joan.

The "Virginia Inn" at the cross-road is said to be the spot where Sir Walter Raleigh's servant emptied a stoup of beer over his master, who was smoking, in the belief that he was on fire.

It possesses a stoup and a rather poor piscina.

Note (1) the stoup near S. door; (2) the piscina in the chancel; (3) the squint in the S. pier of the chancel; (4) the Jacobean pulpit (dated 1625).

Note (1) stoup in S. porch; (2) piscina in S. chapel; (3) fine black oak pulpit.

Its church retains its stoup, piscina, and ancient font, and there is some 15th cent.

The S. porch has niches for images and a stoup; there are piscinas in the chancel and the N. transept, and in the same transept the effigy of a crusader, believed to be one Guy Bryan.

The S. porch has a fine groined roof, with niches and holy-water stoup.

In this aisle is a holy-water stoup.

Note besides, (1) the stoup; (2) effigy of a lady; (3) brasses of Robert Walsh (d. 1427) and his wife (the Walshes owned the manor in the 14th and 15th cents.); (4) font (E.E.); (5) Jacobean pulpit.

The latter contains (1) a pillar stoup in the porch; (2) a Norm, font; (3) some old oak benches; (4) fine granite altar slab, found buried for safety's sake; (5) two small corbels in the chancel, presumably for supporting a Lenten veil (cp. Orchardleigh); (6) piscinas in chancel and S. aisle.

Its church has unusually prominent buttresses to the tower, and preserves (1) remains of stoup in S. porch; (2) piscinas in S. nave wall and chancel; (3) aumbry; (4) poppy heads to seats.

Note (1) E.E. lancets to sanctuary; (2) piscinas in sanctuary and S. aisle; (3) occasional "Devonshire" capitals to pillars; (4) rood-loft stair, as at Porlock; (5) faces on bosses of roof (cp. Selworthy); (6) fragment of stoup in porch.

The church has been rebuilt, but preserves its Norman font (with cable moulding), and a holy-water stoup (within the S. door).

Note (1) stoup in S. porch; (2) piscinas; (3) mural tablet in chancel to the memory of William Kinglake, a physician (d. 1660), with its curious inscription.

At the W. door there is a fine stoup.