Part 11

Oh, but it was a beautiful stain! A large, irregular, map-like stain, with the counties plotted in bits of ham and the townships in smears of bread, with little rivers of butter running everywhere. One dear, beloved rill in an ecstasy of delight had skipped a fold and was pushing a heap of butter ahead of it down a side plait.

I hugged myself with the joy of it all. If it had only been a crock she had sat in, with sandwiches enough to supply a picnic!

And the stain!

That should have been as large as the State of Rhode Island!

BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH

THE FORTUNES OF OLIVER HORN

With full-page Illustrations by Walter Appleton Clark. 12mo, $1.50

"It is long since more charming characters were brought together in one book."--New York _Times Saturday Review_.

"It is in the character-drawing that the author has done his best work. No three finer examples of women can be found than Margaret Grant, Sallie Horn, Oliver's mother, and Lavinia Clendenning, the charming old spinster."--Louisville _Courier-Journal_.

"Full of warmth and life, while its characters find a place quickly in one's heart."--Chicago _Record-Herald_.

"There will be a general unanimity, and that is in the cordiality with which readers will recommend it to their friends."--New York _Globe_.

"Its charm does not depend entirely upon the story, though that is perhaps as entertaining as any Mr. Smith has ever spun, but resides in its exquisite presentations of characters with whom it is a joy to become acquainted."--The Detroit _Free Press_.

THE UNDER DOG

Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50

"There is, of course, a certain tragic air in the run of them, but no real gloominess ... the optimism and natural good humor of the ingenious and versatile author shining in the saddest and most sentimental pages of the book."--New York _Evening Sun_.

"Mr. Hopkinson Smith's genius for sympathy finds full expression in his stories of human under dogs of one sort and another ... each serves as a centre for an episode, rapid, vivid, story-telling."--_The Nation_.

"Mr. Smith shows in the management of the short story, as he has shown so often before, the same command over his material and his instruments which he has shown in his novels."--New York _Tribune_.

"The touch is always light and delicate but sure, and the pictures presented seem very real."--Philadelphia _Public Ledger_.

COLONEL CARTER'S CHRISTMAS

With eight illustrations in color by F. C. Yohn. 12mo, $1.50

"The story rings true."--Brooklyn _Times_.

"Altogether the best character ever created by Mr. Smith."--Providence _Journal_.

"The dear old Colonel claims our smiles and our love as simply and as whole-heartedly as ever, and we thank the author for another glimpse of him."--_Life._