What is Electricity?

By JOHN TROWBRIDGE, S.D., Rumford Professor and Lecturer on the Applications of Science to the Useful Arts, Harvard University. Vol. 75. International Scientific Series. Illustrated. I 2mo.

Cloth, $1.50.

Professor Trowbridge's long experience, both as an original investigator and as a teacher, imparts a peculiar value to this important work. Finding that no treatise could be recommended which answers the question, "What is Electricity?" satisfactorily, he has explained in a popular way the electro-magnetic theory of light and heat, and the subject of periodic currents and electric waves, seeking an answer for his titular question in the study of the transformations of energy and a consideration of the hypotheses of movements in the ether.

Wages and Capital.

An Examination of the Wages Fund Doctrine. By F. W. TAUSSIG, Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University; Author of “Tariff History of the United States " and "The Silver Situation in the United States." 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. The Intellectual and Moral Development of the Child.

Containing the Chapters on Perception, Emotion,
Memory, Imagination, and Consciousness.
By
GABRIEL COMPAYRÉ. Translated from the French
by MARY E. WILSON, B.L., Smith College,
Member of the Graduate Seminary in Child Study,
University of California.
Vol. 35.
International
Education Series. I 2mo. Cloth, $1.50.

General History of Civilization

in Europe.

By FRANÇOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME GUIZOT. Edited, with Critical and Supplementary Notes, by GEORGE WELLS KNIGHT, PH.D., Professor of History and Political Science in Ohio State University. New revised edition. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

Fiat Money Inflation in France. How it Came, What it Brought, and How it Ended. By ANDREW D. WHITE, LL.D. (Yale), L.H.D. (Columbia), PH. DR. (Jena), late President and Professor of History at Cornell University. Paper, 25 cents. Special discount for orders of 100 and over.

By Joel Chandler Harris.
Uncle Remus.

12mo.

His Songs and His Sayings. With New Preface and Revisions, and 112 Illustrations by A. B. FROST. 12mo. Buckram, gilt top, uncut, $2.00.

On the Plantation.

With 23 illustrations by E. W. KEMBLE, and Portrait of the Author. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

Library of Useful Stories.

Each book complete in itself. By writers of authority in their various spheres. 16mo. Cloth, 40c. per volume.

LATEST VOLUMES.

The Story of Electricity. By JOHN MUNRO, E. E.
The Story of a Piece of Coal. By E. A. MARTIN.

The Story of the Solar System. By G. F. CHAMBERS, F. R.A.S.

The Beginners of a Nation.

A History of the Source and Rise of the Earliest English Settlements in America, with Special Reference to the Life and Character of the People. The first volume in A History of Life in the United States. By EDWARD EGGLESTON. Small 8vo. Cloth. (In Press.)

Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. have the pleasure of announcing the first volume of the great historical work which has occupied the energies of Mr. Edward Eggleston for the greater part of the last sixteen years. The general title is, "A History of Life in the United States," the first volume-" The Beginners of a Nation" -dealing with the causes and motives of the seventeenth-century migrations. In announcing this important work the publishers deem it necessary to call attention to only two facts: one, the modern interest in life and character; the other, that Mr. Eggleston is conspicuously the best equipped student of the life and character which have gone to the making of American history. It is within bounds to say that the appearance of this work marks an epoch in American historical literature.

The Reds of the Midi.

An Episode of the French Revolution. By FELIX ERAS. Translated from the Provençal by MRS. CATHERINE A. JANVIER. With an Introduction by THOMAS A. JANVIER. With Frontispiece. Third edition. 16mo. Cloth, $1.50.

"As we read this fascinating, marvelously intense book, it seems as though the whole story of what gave rise to the French Revolution was compressed within its pages. A wonderful book."-Buffalo Commercial.

The Seats of the Mighty.

Being the Memoirs of Captain Robert Moray, sometime an Officer in the Virginia Regiment, and afterwards of Amherst's Regiment. By GILBERT PARKER, author of "Pierre and His People," "The Trail of the Sword," "The Trespasser," etc. Illustrated. Fourth edition. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

"Another historical romance of the vividness and intensity of 'The Seats of the Mighty' have never come from the pen of an American. One of the books of the year."-Chicago Record.

ALWAYS thought seven years old about the sweetest age in the world; the little man or woman is then both so innocent and so wise; and a few months ago I had a half-hour's chance encounter that made me love better than ever the song of "Seven times

one are seven.

It was on a spring afternoon in Central Park. Believe me, I simply tell things as they were, for as a made-up tale this slender narrative would lack much, though to me, as the truth, it does not. My own words I cannot vouch for; they are not important; but the very phrases of my little strangerfriend I have exactly remembered.

He—the seven-year-old—came up behind me as I stood on a bridge over the driveway, and inquired eagerly without preface, "Where's the man? Is he under the bridge?"

I did not know anything about the man and I never learned anything, for whatever concerning him was spinning in that little brain was forgotten when I answered that I was just looking at the trees and flowers. Little Boy then came close by me and looked at them himself, as if with my eyes.

"That's so," he said, answering with conviction my tone and not my words; "they's some pretty flowers here; it's nice; they's trees that has nuts on 'em in the fall, too.

If

He was a rather shabby little fellow. He was on his way home from school and had his lunch-basket on his arm. Two of his front teeth were gone. anything can add to the guileless air of childhood it is the absence of front teeth; no front teeth, and almost any seven-year-old will look lovable. True, this one had other attractions of appearance; a dear, clever, small face (not too clean) and large, candid, dark eyes that were beautiful. We moved on presently to the end of the bridge, and as he turned to the west I said good-by and set my face eastward.

ered with wistaria we were established friends. The vine was in bloom and shedding its flowers; the asphalt beneath it was covered with the exquisite flakes of color. I picked one up; my little man was quick to follow, and he looked at the pinky-lavender, silken blossom as if he had never seen it before, so much did companionship in enjoyment stir his sense of its beauty. He gathered up more.

"I'm going to take some home," he declared; "don't you want some?" But I had no way to carry any of the stemless blooms; he had his basket. When I made this explanation he took a piece of paper from the basket and looked at it thoughtfully. I saw that he contemplated offering it to me. Plainly, he felt that it was desperately hard I should have to go home with none of this treasure that was strewn at my feet. But his paper was greasy, not fit to offer a lady as a wrapping for flowers, and he put it back in silence. When the careless passers-by came trampling through, unheeding wistaria above or below them, he said over and over to himself in varying accents of pain and indignation," They just walk right on 'em!-step on 'em! —step right on 'em!"

We strolled from the arbor past a cottage on whose low roof squirrels were gamboling, and we found it hard to tear ourselves away from it. "I love animals," said Little Boy with a sigh, as we left the squirrels behind us, "I mean any animals, even; even a hippopotamus.

"O! there are some nice houses," he exclaimed with a kind of speculative gusto in his sweet treble, and I was so dull as to look about the untenanted scene with a momentary bewilderment. "If we could only play in them!" he added. The houses were not built with hands; some bushes arched over the turf, and I saw with unsealed eyes now that they offered the most charming opportunities for housekeeping.

At a branching of the path I turned up-town.

"Are you going that way?" I was questioned. "I've got to go to 65th street now; aw, you come on this way, can't you?"

Perhaps it was as a reward for my change of plan that he said, "I know an awful nice place where nobody goes!

That was always my idea exactly of a nice place in the park, though I had never found it. Now I was guided to it, and it had been discovered with that eye for the romantic which is so keen in poetical children. Behind a toolhouse it was, where some young trees screened us from the world, and a little bench, half-size, redeemed the prosiness of all benches. We sat down and fell into intimate communion, told Our names to each other and talked of our ways of life. Little Boy said he had a dog, a puppy, an Irish setter, that he longed to show me; wouldn't I wait there till he could run home and get him; it wouldn't take long?

My answer that I couldn't looks brutal and stupid now, but then some forgotten practical nothing made me suppose I was in a hurry. But I asked him to come and see me and bring his dog, and I gave him my card. That, the card, made a deep and delightful impression; it was my great stroke. Very carefully between thumb and finger it was taken, and—–

"I don't want to get this dirty. I mustn't get it dirty," he murmured to himself, and, after considering and rejecting his pockets, he finally wrapped it in a grimy handkerchief and put it in his basket. Then he took it out and looked at it again.

"Do you give these to little boys? he inquired at last shyly. He wanted to be sure that here was a mark of special favor; but wasn't the point reached with delicate tact?

When we started on again to the 65th street entrance, direct now, the prospect of a near parting stirred him to speak of the deeper things of life and of the soul, before the friend of his choice should leave him.