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{|class="_appendix" ! scope=row | Audit Office ! scope=row | Agency for Offices Administration
 * Mainly responsible for audit, supervision as well as organizing and guiding the audit of the armed forces
 * Mainly responsible for serving and supporting the CMC's functional organs
 * }


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{|class="_appendix"
 * colspan="9" |Sources: Statistical yearbooks and government documents released by the Chinese government and data on China's defense expenditure submitted to the UN by the Chinese government
 * }
 * colspan="9" |Sources: Statistical yearbooks and government documents released by the Chinese government and data on China's defense expenditure submitted to the UN by the Chinese government
 * }


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{|class="_appendix" ! scope="row" rowspan="6"|Others
 * rowspan="5"|
 * Protocol Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime
 * Signed in Dec. 2002
 * Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons Annexed to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (Protocol IV)
 * Instrument of ratification deposited in Nov. 1998
 * Amended Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices Annexed to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (Amended Protocol II)
 * Instrument of ratification deposited in Nov. 1998
 * Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects and Protocols I-III
 * Signed in Sep. 1981, instrument of ratification deposited in Apr. 1982; amendment of Article 1 of the Convention ratified in Jun. 2003, instrument of ratification deposited in Aug. 2003
 * Amended Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices Annexed to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (Amended Protocol II)
 * Instrument of ratification deposited in Nov. 1998
 * Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects and Protocols I-III
 * Signed in Sep. 1981, instrument of ratification deposited in Apr. 1982; amendment of Article 1 of the Convention ratified in Jun. 2003, instrument of ratification deposited in Aug. 2003
 * Signed in Sep. 1981, instrument of ratification deposited in Apr. 1982; amendment of Article 1 of the Convention ratified in Jun. 2003, instrument of ratification deposited in Aug. 2003
 * Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques
 * Acceded in Jun. 2005
 * Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space
 * Acceded in Dec. 1988
 * Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts, and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space
 * Acceded in Dec. 1988
 * Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects
 * Acceded in Dec. 1988
 * Treaty on Principles Concerning the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space Including the Moon and other Celestial Bodies
 * Acceded in Dec. 1983
 * The Antarctic Treaty
 * Acceded in Jun. 1983
 * }
 * Acceded in Dec. 1983
 * The Antarctic Treaty
 * Acceded in Jun. 1983
 * }
 * }


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{|class="_appendix"
 * Convention of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Against Terrorism
 * Jun. 2009
 * Jan. 2012
 * Signed in Jun. 2009, ratified in Dec. 2014
 * Agreement on Cooperation in Combating Illicit Trafficking in Arms, Ammunition and Explosives between the Governments of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
 * Aug. 2008
 * May 2010
 * Approved by the State Council in May 2012, instrument of approval deposited in Jul. 2012, effective in China
 * Agreement on the Procedure for Organizing and Conducting Joint Anti-Terrorism Exercise within Territories of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
 * Aug. 2008
 * Nov. 2013
 * Approved in Jun. 2013, effective in China since Nov. 2013
 * Cooperation Agreement in the Sphere of Identifying and Cutting off the Channels Used by the Individuals Involved in Terrorist, Separatist and Extremist Activities to Enter the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member States
 * Jun. 2006
 * Nov. 2008
 * Approved by the State Council in May 2012, instrument of approval deposited in Jul. 2012, effective in China
 * }
 * Cooperation Agreement in the Sphere of Identifying and Cutting off the Channels Used by the Individuals Involved in Terrorist, Separatist and Extremist Activities to Enter the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member States
 * Jun. 2006
 * Nov. 2008
 * Approved by the State Council in May 2012, instrument of approval deposited in Jul. 2012, effective in China
 * }


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{|class="_appendix" ! No.!!States/ Organizations!!Codename!!Location and Time ! rowspan="2"| !! rowspan="2"|
 * Aerospace Security Computer-Enabled Anti-Missile Command-and-Staff Exercises
 * Held in Russia in May 2016, and in China in Dec. 2017
 * 7
 * Saudi Arabia
 * Explore-2016 Joint Anti-Terrorism Training of Special Forces
 * Held in China in Oct. 2016
 * 8
 * Sri Lanka
 * Silk Road Cooperation-2015 Joint Counter Terrorism Training for Special Operation Units
 * Held in Colombo, Sri Lanka in Jun. 2015
 * 9
 * Tajikistan
 * Cooperation-2016 Joint Anti-Terrorism Exercise
 * Held in Badakhshan, Tajikistan in Oct. 2016
 * 10
 * Thailand
 * Falcon Strike Joint Training
 * Held in Thailand in Nov. 2015; in Thailand in Aug. 2017; in Thailand in Sep. 2018
 * 11
 * UK
 * Non-Combatant Evacuation Operation Desktop Exercises
 * Held in Nanjing in 2016; in London in 2017
 * 12
 * US
 * The US-China Disaster Management Exchange
 * Held in Beijing, Kunming and Chengdu in 2012; in Hawaii in 2013; in Guangzhou and Haikou in 2015; in Seattle in 2015; in Kunming in 2016; in Portland in 2017; in Nanjing in 2018
 * 13
 * Vietnam
 * China-Vietnam Joint Naval Patrols in the Beibu Gulf
 * Held in the shared fishing zone in the Beibu Gulf for 13 times from 2012 to 2018
 * 14
 * Malaysia, Thailand
 * Peace and Friendship 2018 Joint Military Exercise
 * Held in Malaysia in Oct. 2018 by militaries of China, Malaysia and Thailand
 * 15
 * ASEAN
 * Maritime Exercise-2018
 * Held in Zhanjiang and the maritime and air space to the east in Oct. 2018
 * 16
 * EU
 * Cooperation-2018.10.EU Joint Medical Exercise
 * Held in the west Gulf of Aden in Oct. 2018
 * 17
 * SCO
 * Peace Mission Joint Counter-Terrorism Exercises
 * Held in Khujand, Tajikistan in Jun. 2012; in Zhurihe Training Base in Inner Mongolia, China, in Aug. 2014; in the Edelweiss Training Area in Balykchy, Kyrgyzstan, in Sep. 2016; in Chebarkul, Chelyabinsk, Russia, in Aug. 2018
 * }
 * Held in Zhanjiang and the maritime and air space to the east in Oct. 2018
 * 16
 * EU
 * Cooperation-2018.10.EU Joint Medical Exercise
 * Held in the west Gulf of Aden in Oct. 2018
 * 17
 * SCO
 * Peace Mission Joint Counter-Terrorism Exercises
 * Held in Khujand, Tajikistan in Jun. 2012; in Zhurihe Training Base in Inner Mongolia, China, in Aug. 2014; in the Edelweiss Training Area in Balykchy, Kyrgyzstan, in Sep. 2016; in Chebarkul, Chelyabinsk, Russia, in Aug. 2018
 * }
 * Held in Khujand, Tajikistan in Jun. 2012; in Zhurihe Training Base in Inner Mongolia, China, in Aug. 2014; in the Edelweiss Training Area in Balykchy, Kyrgyzstan, in Sep. 2016; in Chebarkul, Chelyabinsk, Russia, in Aug. 2018
 * }


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{|class="_appendix" !Platform!!Year of Inception!!Description
 * QCCM among the Military Forces of Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and Tajikistan
 * 2016
 * The QCCM was built to provide coordination and mutual support in situation evaluation, evidence verification, intelligence sharing, capacity building, and training. China has always emphasized that the mechanism is not targeted against any other country or international organization and is ready to join all parties in expanding cooperation, increasing counter terrorism capacity, and safeguarding regional peace and stability. To date, two military leaders' meetings have been held.
 * Great Wall Counter-Terrorism International Forum
 * 2016
 * The inaugural session of the forum was held in Beijing in Nov. 2016 with the theme of "counter-terrorism in urban areas". Representatives from 25 countries including Russia, France, Egypt and Brazil participated. The second forum was held in Beijing in May 2018 with the theme of "counter-terrorism in mountainous areas". Representatives from 27 countries including France, Nigeria, Chile and Pakistan participated.
 * China and Latin America High-Level Defense Forum
 * 2012
 * The biennial forum is hosted by China's MND. With the theme of "enhancing mutual understanding and collaboration", the forum aims to promote Latin-American militaries' understanding of and trust in China and its military, and facilitate continued military exchanges and cooperation between the Chinese and Latin-American militaries. The forum is represented by defense and military leadership from major Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries.
 * ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting Plus
 * 2010
 * ADMM-Plus is the largest and highest-level dialogue and cooperation mechanism on defense and security in the Asia-Pacific region. Since 2016, under the mechanism, the PLA has participated in a joint exercise on peacekeeping and demining in India, and exercises on maritime security and counter-terrorism in both Brunei and Singapore. From 2017 to 2020, China and Thailand co-chair the counter-terrorism expert working group.
 * Beijing Xiangshan Forum
 * 2006
 * This annual forum is co-hosted by the China Association for Military Science and the China Institute for International Strategic Studies. The Xiangshan Forum was upgraded to a track-1.5 platform of international security and defense dialogue in 2014. It was renamed the Beijing Xiangshan Forum in 2018. The forum advocates the principles of equality, openness, inclusiveness and mutual learning. In Oct. 2018, the 8th Beijing Xiangshan Forum was held with the participation of over 500 representatives from 67 countries and 7 international organizations. The forum injected strong positive energy into regional and international security cooperation.
 * Shangri-La Dialogue
 * 2002
 * The dialogue is hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank based in London, and co-hosted by the Ministry of Defense of Singapore. It is held in early June every year in the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore. At the 17th Shangri-La Dialogue in 2018, the Chinese delegation, on the topic of "Strategic Implications of Military Capability Development in the Asia-Pacific", explained the important proposals of President Xi Jinping on building a new model of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind, and actively promoted a joint effort with relevant countries to maintain regional security and stability.
 * }
 * 2006
 * This annual forum is co-hosted by the China Association for Military Science and the China Institute for International Strategic Studies. The Xiangshan Forum was upgraded to a track-1.5 platform of international security and defense dialogue in 2014. It was renamed the Beijing Xiangshan Forum in 2018. The forum advocates the principles of equality, openness, inclusiveness and mutual learning. In Oct. 2018, the 8th Beijing Xiangshan Forum was held with the participation of over 500 representatives from 67 countries and 7 international organizations. The forum injected strong positive energy into regional and international security cooperation.
 * Shangri-La Dialogue
 * 2002
 * The dialogue is hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank based in London, and co-hosted by the Ministry of Defense of Singapore. It is held in early June every year in the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore. At the 17th Shangri-La Dialogue in 2018, the Chinese delegation, on the topic of "Strategic Implications of Military Capability Development in the Asia-Pacific", explained the important proposals of President Xi Jinping on building a new model of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind, and actively promoted a joint effort with relevant countries to maintain regional security and stability.
 * }
 * }


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Tragedy was written in the summer and autumn of the year 1797; at Nether Stowey, in the county of Somerset. By whose recommendation, and of the manner in which both the Play and the Author were treated by the Recommender, let me be permitted to relate: that I knew of its having been received only by a third person; that I could procure neither answer nor the manuscript; and that but for an accident I should have had no copy of the Work itself. That such treatment would damp a young man's exertions may be easily conceived: there was no need of after-misrepresentation and calumny, as an additional sedative.

As an amusing anecdote, and in the wish to prepare future Authors, as young as I then was and as ignorant of the world, of the treatment they may meet with, I will add, that the Person who by a twice conveyed recommendation (in the year 1797) had urged me to write a Tragedy: who on my own objection that I was utterly ignorant of all Stage-tactics had


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{|class="_appendix" !Platform!!Year of Inception!!Description
 * SCO
 * 2001
 * Established in 2001 on the basis of the Shanghai Five (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan) mechanism, the SCO aims to enhance mutual trust, good-neighborliness and friendship among the member states, encourages the member states to effectively cooperate in such fields as politics, economy, culture and education. The organization is committed to maintaining and safeguarding regional peace, security and stability and building a new international political and economic order that is democratic, fair and equitable. The member states have signed important documents including the Treaty on Long-term Good-neighborly Relations, Friendships and Cooperation among the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member States. From 9th to 10th Jun. 2018 in Qingdao, President Xi Jinping presided over the first Council of Heads of State of the SCO with an expanded membership, and stressed that member states will continue to uphold the Shanghai Spirit, make joint efforts to build an SCO community with a shared future, and promote a new model of international relations.
 * Chiefs of Defense Conference
 * 1998
 * Initiated by the US PACOM, the conference is held annually and alternates between the US and other Asia-Pacific countries. China has participated every year since 2014. At the conference in Sep. 2017, the Chinese side focused on explaining President Xi Jinping's vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind and the new proposals on security, and advocated that relevant countries should enhance strategic mutual trust and cooperate to meet global challenges.
 * ASEAN Regional Forum
 * 1994
 * The forum has a membership of 27 countries and is the official multilateral platform for security dialogue and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. Since 2015, China has hosted important meetings and events including the ARF Peacekeeping Experts' Meeting, the ARF Defense Officials' Dialogue, the ARF Heads of Defense Universities/Colleges/Institutions Meeting, and the ARF Security Policy Conference.
 * }
 * ASEAN Regional Forum
 * 1994
 * The forum has a membership of 27 countries and is the official multilateral platform for security dialogue and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. Since 2015, China has hosted important meetings and events including the ARF Peacekeeping Experts' Meeting, the ARF Defense Officials' Dialogue, the ARF Heads of Defense Universities/Colleges/Institutions Meeting, and the ARF Security Policy Conference.
 * }


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UNT BETSY lived with her mother, Old Lady Pratt, in a small house in Green Street. Small as the house was, she had never got over the impression that it was rather large, and very handsome. Forty-five years ago, before she lost her hearing, Aunt Betsy, then little Betty Pratt, had heard her mother pronounce it to be "in every respect superior" to the house they had left, though that had been "a very desirable residence in its day." It stood on a quiet little side street, where there were no pretentious neighbors to put it out of countenance; a street which slumbered on, so undisturbed by the bustle of the town a few blocks away that Aunt Betsy used sometimes to wonder whether it were not "a little hard o' hearin' too."

The "new house," as she still called it in her own thoughts, was long and rambling, presenting


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 a narrow end to the street, upon which only the staircase windows looked, and then elongating itself surprisingly, away back into what would have been the backyard had not the wood-shed crowded itself up to the very fence. This obliged them to stretch their clothes-line across the long, narrow grass-plot, which followed the line of the house from back to front—a thing which was something of a trial to Aunt Betsy. She never thought it quite modest to hang out your undergarments in full view of the passers-by, and she had sometimes wished that a hedge might be planted across the space, just beyond the green side-door. But being very much in awe of her mother, she had never ventured to suggest any such innovation, and had contented herself with a persistent effort to have the sheets and tablecloths hung on the front line. As she did not assign any reason for this arrangement, it is no wonder that Eliza, Mrs. Pratt's "girl"—a maiden of some sixty odd summers,—regarded it as a "whim of Miss Betsy's," and was not always mindful of so arbitrary a rule.

Aunt Betsy lived in a very small world indeed, and her small world was entirely overshadowed by the strong and rather severe influence of her mother. She was but ten years old when the narrow barriers of her life were fixed irrevocably about her soul.

Only a few days after they moved into the new house the little daughter, the youngest of six


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 children, slipped on the steep, narrow backstairs, and fell from top to bottom. From that time she became almost totally deaf. Whether at the same time her faculties were deadened, or whether they had become dull from want of incentive from without, no one knows. Certain it is that she was never the lively, intelligent child that Mrs. Pratt had every right to expect a child of hers to be.

She was now a tall, rather corpulent woman, with somewhat flabby cheeks, and little appearance of "backbone," wherein she presented a striking contrast to her small, upright mother, who even in her eighty-fifth year never leaned back in her chair, and whose bright black eyes could startle Betsy, with a look which seemed positively shrill to the poor old woman, in the eternal silence of her consciousness.

For she grew to be an old woman after a time. See saw her brothers and sisters leave their home, one after another, and make new homes for themselves; her father, who had been gentle with her, "departed hence," and, last of all, Ben, her favorite brother, took to himself a wife, and moved into Bliss Street.

Ben was a kindly soul, of few words, who had always got on better than any one else with Betsy. For instead of trying to talk to her, and getting impatient when she did not hear, he had a way of turning upon her now and then a broad, beaming smile as delightful as a whole conversation. On


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 his wedding day he made Betsy a present, which remained her dearest possession as long as she lived. It was a large glass pin, containing a lock of her father's hair, and bordered with a row of small seed-pearls. On the golden back was inscribed, in old English letters.

She wore it on Sundays, and when the minister came to tea, and at the christenings and weddings of her nieces and nephews. The rest of the time it reposed in a small satin-lined box, together with a carnelian ring which her mother thought she was too old to wear, and a stray onyx sleeve-button which had belonged to her father.

She felt sorry to have Ben go, and she told him so, in an unsteady voice that went to the kind fellow's heart; but then she supposed it was "natural enough," and she submitted, quite uncomplainingly, to the life alone with her sharp-eyed mother, which was to reach on and on into the future.

Happily, Betsy did not think much about the future. She was a placid soul, not realizing very clearly how much brighter other lives were than hers. She loved her canary-bird and the great "Malty" cat, Topsy by name, which attained to a fabulous age, living in undisputed possession of the one really comfortable chair in the sitting


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 room. And, above all, she found companionship in her flowers. Every one gave her slips and seedlings, and marvelled at her success in raising them. The sunny south window in the wood-shed was the nursery for these pets of hers, and not until they were fairly flowering were they promoted to the green wire stand in the sitting-room. The neighbors used to praise her skill and ask her advice, and even her mother would sometimes betray a pride in this "faculty" of Betsy's.

"Betsy," she would say, when Mrs. Baxter had come in with her knitting to pass the afternoon—"Betsy, you go out into the wood-shed and fetch in that little flower that blowed this mornin'. Mis' Baxter would like to see it, mebbe."

She did not succeed so well with the children growing up about her. She was a little shy of them, of their gay chatter, which she could not understand, and their childish egotism. They all loved Grandma, or, as she had now become, Great-grandmamma Pratt. She made such good jokes, and laughed, and was interested in all their doings. But Aunt Betsy just sat there with her worsted-work, and didn't hear when she was spoken to unless you quite shouted in her ear, and then she jumped in such a funny way, and seemed so flustered. Why, she couldn't even "make a cheese" for them, when the big hoops came into fashion, by twirling round and round


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 and then suddenly sitting plump down on the floor with her skirts rising in billows about her. Aunt Emmeline could do it, and Aunt Martha, and 'most any body, but Aunt Betsy said it made her head giddy. Aunt Betsy was "no good."

Sometimes, when Betsy found how startling and troublesome these small specimens of humanity were, she was almost reconciled to being an old maid. She knew that her mother was a good deal mortified at having a child who had never "had an offer," and she felt hot and uncomfortable as often as she thought of a certain temptation which had assailed her many years ago. It was when the neighborhood was stirred and shocked by the sudden death of young Alfred Williams, an amiable though impecunious member of Green Street society, who had been left over, as it were, from among her sister Jane's admirers. Betsy was at that time about twenty-one years old, and Alfred had continued coming in pretty regularly to tea of an evening after the disappearance of Jane from the family circle. The goodness of the fare may have been an attraction, or perhaps he really liked Betsy, though he gave no sign. However that may have been, his visits had not passed unnoted by the neighbors, and the morning he died Mrs. Baxter came in to discuss the news.

"He was a very well favored young man, I am sure," said she, "and a great loss to our circle. Dr. Baxter says he has heard that his employers


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 had entire confidence in him. And, by-the-way," she added, turning to Betsy, and raising her voice to its highest pitch, "I always thought that Alfred had rather a leaning to you, Betsy."

This speech threw Betsy into such an unwonted tremor and flutter that she blushed violently, and looked guilty of a hundred tender passages.

The moment their visitor had departed, Mrs. Pratt beckoned her daughter to her side on the sofa and asked, in her penetrating voice, "Did he ever say anything, Betsy?"

I fancy that Betsy, at the moment, would have given half her life's purchase to say "Yes"; but something within her which no limitations could stunt, a perfectly well developed New England conscience, compelled her to answer:

"No, Mother, he never said a word."

So the stigma of the unsought rested upon poor Betsy, and her last chance was lost of rising in her mother's esteem.

Before she was forty her mother put her into caps, which she never changed the fashion of. They were flat on top and very bunchy at the sides, with purple or green ribbons, which bobbed up and down when she moved her head. She got a habit of letting her head "joggle" a little as she bent over her worsted-work or tatting, much to the disgust of her mother, who tried to break her of it. But her mother's admonitions used to frighten her so that she lost control of herself in that peremptory little woman's presence,


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 and her head only shook the harder. When she was alone in her room she could almost always get it steady again. She used to sit in front of the glass, seeing how still she could hold her head; and, curiously enough, this study of her own countenance, so new and yet so fascinating, developed a singular vanity in her which no one would have dreamed of suspecting. Especially of a Sunday, when she had on her "shot-silk" gown, with Brother Ben's pin fastening the broad flat collar, and when her best cap rested on her gray locks, she would look deprecatingly at her fat, amiable old face, and wonder if blue eyes were not most as pretty as black," and whether, if she had not been so deaf, she too might not have had offers like the other women she knew.

It was about this time—that is, when Aunt Betsy was well on in the fifties—that photography was first invented, and her brothers and sisters began coming in with little card pictures of themselves and their families. All the neighborhood was excited about these wonderful likenesses, to be got at three dollars a dozen, and so much more satisfactory than the old daguerreotypes, which one had to turn this way and that to see them at all. Even Grandma was at last persuaded to sit for hers, and it had been in such demand that two dozen had been ordered on the spot, and they had "gone off like hot cakes," as Brother Ben kept saying over and over again.


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 Aunt Betsy was never tired of studying these black-and-white representations of her relatives, and she secretly cherished a hope that some one would propose her sitting for hers. Nobody thought of such a thing, however, though one of her sisters gave her a small photograph album bound in purple cloth. This did not fill up very fast, as Grandma always had to have the new photographs, and not many people were prepared to squander two specimens on one family. She had her mother, looking unnaturally meek without her spectacles, and Brother Ben and Sister Harriet, besides the youngest babies in the family, whose mothers really could not refuse the lovely things to any one who asked for them. But this was all.

By and by the new sensation was a little past, and other subjects of interest came up, lacking pictorial illustration—subjects in which Aunt Betsy could not take so intelligent a part.

Now Aunt Betsy had always a little store of money, which her well-to-do brothers and sisters kept her supplied with. Her sister Harriet particularly was "quite a rich woman," as Old Lady Pratt took some pride in stating, and rode in her carriage; and not infrequently she made her sister Betsy a present of a quarter or even half a dollar. Betsy, who was a hospitable soul, used to wait upon their guests to the door, and say, in a tone of mild entreaty, no matter what the length of the visit might have been:


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 "Do come agin, when you can stay longer."

In response to which little formula Sister Harriet would often slip a bit of paper currency into her hand, and say;

"Thank you, Betsy. There! There's a trifle for your worsted-work."

And to that purpose the money was usually devoted; for, so small was Aunt Betsy's world, that even objects of charity seldom found their way into it, and the contribution box, with its mute appeal, never crossed her vision. Her mother had long ago decreed that "there was no sense in Betsy's goin' to meetin'. She could n't hear a syllable, and it was a shame to go to the Lord's House jest to stare about you."

So the money which might have swelled the missionary exchequer went to the purchase of very brilliant colored worsteds, which were always utilized in the following manner: Aunt Betsy would work on canvas, in black cross-stitch, the outline of hearts, ingeniously arranged, so that the lobe of one furnished the point for the next above it. These hearts were filled in, each with a different colored worsted, the small diamond-shaped spaces between being wrought in bright yellow silk, and thus pin-cushions and sofa pillows were made and sown broadcast throughout the family.

Betsy was also skilled in making tape trimming for underclothes, and she had a wooden frame on which she sometimes embroidered


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 rather unsubstantial lace. But she much preferred to work in colors. "Colors are so speaking," as she used to say to herself. Her special pride was a sofa cushion she once worked for Sister Harriet, which contained three hundred and twenty-four hearts, no two of which were done in the same shade of worsted.

There came a time when Aunt Betsy felt that if she did not have her picture taken before she grew any older and shakier, it would be too great a disappointment; and one day, when her mother was gone to "pass the afternoon with Harriet," Aunt Betsy, feeling as though she were committing a theft, took three dollars from her upper bureau drawer, tied up the bandbox containing her best cap, and, arrayed in her "shot silk" gown and Brother Ben's pin, set out with palpitating heart for the photograph saloon. It was her first visit to the place, but she knew the entrance well.

The short walk was accomplished all too soon, and long before she had gathered courage she found herself confronted with the great glass case, filled with specimens of the photographer's art, on which she had often gazed with admiration. As she stopped a moment to study the stony or smirking features of her fellow-townsmen, she received an unexpected shock. In the very middle of the case, a strangely familiar countenance met her eye, and seemingly returned her gaze with the light of recognition. The


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{|class="_appendix"
 * Jan. 2012
 * South Sudan (UNMISS)
 * Infantry battalion of 700 troops, engineering unit of 268 troops, and medical unit of 63 troops
 * In South Sudan, the engineering unit built and maintained 5,365 km of roads, repaired 7 bridges, and installed 72 prefabricated houses; the medical unit treated 21,000 patients; the infantry battalion conducted 63 long/short-distance patrols, and carried out 216 armed escorts and 42 inspections in refugee camps, covering a total mileage of 1,020,000 km.
 * Nov. 2007
 * Sudan (UNAMID)
 * Engineering unit of 225 troops, helicopter unit of 140 troops
 * In Darfur, Sudan, the engineering unit built and repaired 89 km of roads, installed 400 prefabricated houses and drilled 14 wells; the helicopter unit flew 800 sorties totaling 1,150 hours, transporting 5,500 persons and 230 tons of materials.
 * Apr. 2006
 * Lebanon (UNIFIL)
 * Multi-functional engineering unit of 180 troops, construction engineering unit of 200 troops, and medical unit of 30 troops
 * In Lebanon, the engineering unit cleared 10,342 mines and items of unexploded ordnance; completed maintenance tasks on houses and equipment; and received and treated 78,900 patients.
 * Apr. 2003
 * DR Congo (MONUSCO)
 * Engineering unit of 175 troops and medical unit of 43 troops
 * In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the engineering unit built 4,650 km of roads and 214 bridges; and the medical unit treated 35,000 patients.
 * colspan="4"|Notes: In addition to the units, the PLA has sent over 80 military observers, staff officers and military officers under UN contract to the 5 above-mentioned UNPKOs, UNTSO, MINURSO and UN Headquarters.
 * }
 * DR Congo (MONUSCO)
 * Engineering unit of 175 troops and medical unit of 43 troops
 * In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the engineering unit built 4,650 km of roads and 214 bridges; and the medical unit treated 35,000 patients.
 * colspan="4"|Notes: In addition to the units, the PLA has sent over 80 military observers, staff officers and military officers under UN contract to the 5 above-mentioned UNPKOs, UNTSO, MINURSO and UN Headquarters.
 * }
 * }


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 photograph was enlarged to about ten times its normal size, and had thus become a startlingly realistic presentment of the original. It was no other than Sister Harriet, with her jet-black "false front," her white muslin "bosom," and the large diamond ring on the forefinger of her right hand. Betsy's heart almost stopped beating as she gazed, fascinated, into the familiar face; but its expression of fixed self-complacency could not, even to her guilty conscience, seem disapproving, and somewhat encouraged she respectfully took her leave of it, and began the ascent of the four flights of stairs which led to the photographic Parnassus.

Arrived, panting and perturbed, at the door, which opened directly at the head of the stairs, it was some time before she could make up her mind to go into the mysterious sanctuary where occult arts were practised; and besides, she kept telling herself that if she were to meet one of her acquaintances she should "sink through the floor." In this respect Fate was kind; for when at last she summoned courage to open the door and go in, she found the room untenanted. A strange uncanny odor greeted her entrance into the bare, empty room, and she looked about her with a vague uneasiness, half expecting to see a wicked magician emerge from the curtained glass door in one corner of the room. To her infinite relief, a meek-looking little man of a blond complexion came forward and politely offered his services.


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 "Is this Mr. Billings, the photographer?" she asked, in an awe-struck tone.

"At your service, madam," he replied. If only Aunt Betsy could have heard the deferential words and tone!

"I came to sit for my photograph."

"Certainly, madam; certainly. Will you step into the operating-room?"

"I am a little hard of hearing," said Aunt Betsy, with an inclination of the head; and perceiving, after several attempts, that she was indeed "a little hard of hearing," the little man shouted, in a voice that would have done credit to a mastodon: "The operating-room is this way."

The ghastly word struck terror to Aunt Betsy's soul, and her head began to shake nervously. "There must be some mistake," she faltered, though speaking with all the dignity she could command. "I wish to sit for my photograph."

"Certainly, madam; certainly. Just step this way, if you please"; and with a reassuring smile and a cheerful alacrity not to be resisted, he led the way into the adjoining room.

It was a dazzlingly bright apartment, with a bare yet cluttered look, which Aunt Betsy could not approve. There were chairs and tables in meaningless situations, pictured screens leaning helplessly against one another, and the evil-looking tripod mysteriously draped in green baize.

"Mr. Billings, the photographer," disappeared behind the screens, and left Aunt Betsy standing, dazed, in the middle of the room.


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 Suddenly the mastodon voice at her ear shouted: "Are you fond of foreign travel, ma'am? Here is a very handsome ruin for a background."

Turning, with a start, Aunt Betsy beheld a screen decorated with broken Corinthian columns and a Roman aqueduct. She thought it very fine, but before she had time to confess that she had never been out of Middlevale County, the obliging young man had whisked out a wonderful landscape, representing a majestic water-fall and several impossible trees.

"Perhaps you prefer a bit of nature, ma'am," he roared. That, too, was very beautiful, but both seemed to her a little ambitious for a person who had never seen a water-fall, nor dreamed of a Roman aqueduct. There was a familiar look about those Corinthian pillars, which she associated with Sister Harriet's picture; but then, it would not be presumptuous in Sister Harriet, who might have travelled in foreign parts any time these ten years, if it had not been for that dangerous ocean.

While she was pondering thus on the fitness of things, the indefatigable Mr. Billings produced another screen, covered with grape-vines such as grew on the wood-shed at home. And then, oh, wonder of wonders! he drew forth a wicket gate of the most picturesque description, and placed it alluringly before the grape-vine.

"There, madam!" he shouted, "if you would stand in a natural attitude behind that gate, with


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 your right hand upon the top, as though about to pass through, I think you would find the effect artistic."

This was a long effort for the mastodon voice, but the word "artistic" was distinctly audible, and the young man placed his own hand upon the gate in a manner which appealed so strongly to Aunt Betsy's imagination that she assented timidly to the arrangement. Mr. Billings then kindly anticipated a difficulty which would have seemed to Aunt Betsy insurmountable, by showing her into a small closet, furnished with a looking glass and a gas-jet, where she could remove her bonnet and don her cap without "exposing" herself.

When she returned she found Mr. Billings handling some queer little slates resembling those which the children carried to school. He slipped one into the camera, and then, coming forward, proceeded to station his "subject" in front of the grape-vine, her right hand, in a black lace mitt, reposing upon the wicket gate, and her voluminous skirts spreading on either side. Then a tall iron stand was placed at her back, and a pair of cold prongs inserted under the purple ribbons behind each ear; after which Mr. Billings withdrew behind his camera and enveloped his head in the green baize. For a moment it seemed to Aunt Betsy almost as though he were trifling with her, but when he again emerged, with his face very red and his hair much dishevelled, there was a look of professional gravity and concentration


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 upon his amiable countenance which dispelled such thoughts; and even when he tripped back to her and took her temples delicately between his thumbs and lightly chucked her under the chin to improve the pose, she felt convinced that the sudden flush which mounted to her brow was quite uncalled for.

Having moved off a little, cocked his head first on one side and then on the other, Mr. Billings again retreated beneath the green baize. In a moment he came smiling back, rubbing his hands together and murmuring: "Excellent, really excellent"; and then, in stentorian tones he shouted: "Would you be kind enough to moisten your lips, madam? Thank you. Now fix your eyes on that black spot on the wall. Look pleasant. Yes—very good, very good. Wink freely, but do not move your head."

Oh, the comfort of those iron tongs!

Vaguely wishing that she had such a pair at home, Aunt Betsy braced her untrustworthy head against them and stood in the glaring light, her eyes fixed upon the foolish black spot which danced perplexingly before her, her lips tightly closed, and a strange, unearthly look graven upon her countenance.

When release came, the poor old lady was almost too cramped to move or to feel the exultation natural to a released victim. Truly, the "operating-room" was aptly named, in those first stages of the black-and-white art.


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 But, a few minutes later, when Aunt Betsy paid her three dollars in advance and engaged to call for the photographs,—"Thank you, I would rather not give my address or have them sent home—I want to surprise my folks,"—a delicious feeling came over her of living in a wonderful age, and of being, at last, fully abreast of the times.

Some days of suppressed excitement passed, and at last the photographs were finished and delivered into her hands, and she knew, with a guilty knowledge, that the time had come for her to "surprise her folks." She hurried home, looking neither to the right nor to the left, the precious package buried in the depths of her pocket, entered the house surreptitiously as a burglar, and crept up to her own room. When the door was securely fastened, she took a long breath, and then proceeded, not to examine the pictures, but to put her bonnet and shawl carefully away, smooth her hair with a fine-tooth comb, and adjust her cap before the glass; then she tied on her black silk apron, and sat down by the open window, holding the little package in her hand.

It was a brilliant September day, and she sat looking out into the great horse-chestnut tree before the window. Her father had planted it forty-five years ago, for he liked to have horse-chestnuts "handy." He firmly believed that they would ward off rheumatism if carried in the pocket; and sure enough, as Aunt Betsy reflected,


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 he had never had a twinge of rheumatism in the sixty odd years of his life!

In the horse-chestnut tree was a bird-cote in the shape of a white-steepled "meeting-house." A fat little sparrow, perched on the door-sill of this minute edifice, was chirping sharply. Aunt Betsy watched his agitated little body, but did not hear him chirp. In the yard Eliza, the "girl," was vigorously pumping, causing a stream of water to gush noisily into the pail, and Aunt Betsy could see the neighbor's dog barking vociferously at a cat in a tree. But none of these sounds penetrated the heavy silence in which she was wrapped about. Only the beating of her pulse throbbed in her ears, and in a nervous tremor she delayed opening the package, much as a young girl might delay breaking the seal of a love-letter when once she had it in secure possession. So alike are sensations from totally different causes, and sensations of any kind being rare in Aunt Betsy's experience, she might well linger a little over this one.

But at last she had drawn one of the little cards from the package, and held it in her hand, and as the pleasant south wind fluttered her cap ribbons, and the afternoon sun shone kindly upon her, she looked shyly at her pictured countenance, and a sense of deep satisfaction transfused itself through her.

There was no mistaking the contour of her best cap; and as for the breastpin, she could almost


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 count the seed-pearls in the rim, while the "artistic effect" of that wicket-gate seemed to her "too pretty for anything." The rigidity of the attitude quite escaped her uncritical eye, and she failed to observe that the accustomed look of mild benevolence which sat so well on her plain face was here turned to an expression of almost savage intensity, as much out of place as a frown on a rabbit's countenance.

Yes, Aunt Betsy's dream was realized. She held in her hand twelve unmistakable likenesses of her "Sunday things," and they gave her as much pleasure as the most brilliant colored paper-doll had caused her when she was a little girl in the old house, and could hear the delightful rattle of the blue and red and yellow papers. Even a bit of color was not lacking to her new treasures, for the photographer had touched the cheeks of the counterfeit Aunt Betsy with spots of vivid carmine.

A spot almost as bright glowed in each cheek of the flesh-and-blood Aunt Betsy as she descended into the sitting-room, not, indeed, to "surprise her folks." She could not yet rid herself of the feeling of guilt connected with the whole transaction, and she dreaded lest her mother should call her a fool, as she had promptly done whenever her docile daughter had committed any mild indiscretion, such as wishing for a "false front" when her hair became gray, or wondering whether the minister, when he came to tea, might not pre-


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 fer fancy tarts, such as Sister Harriet's new-fangled cook made, to the old-fashioned mince-pies.

"Betsy, you're a fool!" when pronounced by Old Lady Pratt, never failed to penetrate the muffled hearing like a, and Betsy used to wish within herself that her mother would put it a little differently.

Poor Aunt Betsy had been so promptly put down in her life that she had never before had the sensation of committing an out-and-out indiscretion. Now, at least, she had it, and her mother's quick eye instantly detected the unwonted flush.

"Betsy," cried the alert old lady, "come here. Let me feel your pulse! Goodness me, child! You're in a high fever! You've caught a cold! You ain't been settin' by an open window?"

The gray-haired culprit admitted that she had.

"Betsy, you're a fool! You al'ays was full of romantic notions about open windows. You'll jest go right straight to bed, and drink a cup of pennyr'yal tea. Do you hear?"

Betsy heard. Old Lady Pratt's reproofs were always audible, even to her, and her commands were not to be questioned. So Aunt Betsy was packed away to bed, while the exultation died out within her, and the old patient compliance returned in its place. She lay there in a gentle apathy, watching the last ray of sunlight die away on the flowered wall, and waiting resignedly for the unsavory dose.

Presently the door opened, and the straight


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 little figure of Mrs. Pratt entered, well lighted up by the candle she held in one hand, while in the other she bore a smoking bowl of tea. Her own cheeks were somewhat flushed from bending over the fire. She set the candle on the high bureau, tasted the tea herself once or twice, and then, without much ceremony, poured the scalding draught down her patient's throat; after which she felt her pulse again, and asked to see her tongue.

"I declare for 't" she cried, "if you're not better a'ready! There never was anything like my pennyr'yal tea for stoppin' a cold off short! Now you turn over and go right to sleep, and you'll be as good as new in the mornin'."

The old lady meant kindly; but what words could sound kind, spoken in a high falsetto? Poor Aunt Betsy! I wonder if she herself realized what she missed in never hearing the voices of her fellow-creatures in their natural tones. No one could ever speak tenderly to her, nor soothingly, nor confidentially. All those softer accents, so much more eloquent than words, must be forever lost to her; she could only know the voices of her friends in the harsh, strained pitch which they must take to reach her ears.

Days and weeks went by after Betsy's wonderful cure and the secret of her escapade was still her own. She shrank more and more from confessing what she had done, and yet she was tortured by the feeling that it had been a "dread-


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{|class="_appendix" ! Starting Date!!Countries Concerned!!Mission Description
 * Aug. 2017
 * Sri Lanka
 * The PLAN task group visited Sri Lanka at a time when the country had been hit by a severe flood. The task group participated immediately in the disaster relief efforts by sending a medical team to the affected area to provide medical services and epidemic prevention, and donating relief materials including rubber boats.
 * Jun. 2016
 * Vietnam
 * After the air crash in Vietnam, the PLA sent naval vessels and aircraft to assist in searching for the crashed plane and rescuing the crew.
 * Aug. 2015
 * Myanmar
 * In the severe flood in Myanmar, the PLA deployed 2 transport aircraft to deliver 3 batches of tents, blankets and generators.
 * May. 2015
 * Nepal
 * After the strong earthquake in Nepal, the PLA sent 8 specialized teams totaling 1,088 people including rescue teams, medical and epidemic prevention teams, and transport teams to the affected area. They treated 5,294 people, decontaminated an area of 940,000 m2, airlifted 690 tons of relief materials and restored over 330 km of roads.
 * Jan. 2015
 * Malaysia
 * After the severe flood in Malaysia, the PLAAF sent aircraft to transport relief materials such as tents, water pumps and water purification facilities.
 * Dec. 2014
 * Maldives
 * In the severe water scarcity in Male, the capital city of Maldives, the PLAN submarine support ship Changxingdao used its ship borne desalting devices to provide fresh water for the affected population. The PLAAF provided emergency delivery of over 40 tons of bottled water by an IL-76.
 * Aug. 2014
 * The Republic of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau
 * After the outbreak of Ebola in west Africa, the PLA sent 524 medical staff in 7 groups to conduct epidemic prevention operations. They built a treatment center, hospitalized 938 suspected patients and trained more than 3,000 local medical staff.
 * Mar. 2014
 * Malaysia, Australia
 * After the Malaysian Airliner MH370 lost contact, the PLAN sent 9 surface vessels, 6 ship borne helicopters and 2,185 service members to the search missions in the Malacca Strait, the Adman Sea, and waters in southwest and west to Australia. The vessels sailed 98,000 nautical miles in 7,679 sailing hours and searched 744,000 km2 of sea. The PLAAF sent 2 IL-76 and 1 Y-8C to Malaysia and Australia on multinational joint search and rescue missions. The PLAAF organized 35 search flight sorties totaling 267 hours and 3 minutes, and covering a total flight distance of 167,000 km.
 * Nov. 2013
 * The Philippines
 * After Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, the PLAN hospital ship Ark Peace was sent to conduct medical aid operations. In total, it treated 2,208 injured people, hospitalized 113 people, performed 44 surgical operations, transported 757 people in 76 helicopter sorties and 718 people in 104 boat sorties.
 * }
 * After the outbreak of Ebola in west Africa, the PLA sent 524 medical staff in 7 groups to conduct epidemic prevention operations. They built a treatment center, hospitalized 938 suspected patients and trained more than 3,000 local medical staff.
 * Mar. 2014
 * Malaysia, Australia
 * After the Malaysian Airliner MH370 lost contact, the PLAN sent 9 surface vessels, 6 ship borne helicopters and 2,185 service members to the search missions in the Malacca Strait, the Adman Sea, and waters in southwest and west to Australia. The vessels sailed 98,000 nautical miles in 7,679 sailing hours and searched 744,000 km2 of sea. The PLAAF sent 2 IL-76 and 1 Y-8C to Malaysia and Australia on multinational joint search and rescue missions. The PLAAF organized 35 search flight sorties totaling 267 hours and 3 minutes, and covering a total flight distance of 167,000 km.
 * Nov. 2013
 * The Philippines
 * After Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, the PLAN hospital ship Ark Peace was sent to conduct medical aid operations. In total, it treated 2,208 injured people, hospitalized 113 people, performed 44 surgical operations, transported 757 people in 76 helicopter sorties and 718 people in 104 boat sorties.
 * }
 * After Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, the PLAN hospital ship Ark Peace was sent to conduct medical aid operations. In total, it treated 2,208 injured people, hospitalized 113 people, performed 44 surgical operations, transported 757 people in 76 helicopter sorties and 718 people in 104 boat sorties.
 * }


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 ful waste of money," if she was going to keep those twelve photographs for herself. She sometimes thought of confessing the whole thing to kind Brother Ben, or of boldly offering a "picture" to Sister Harriet; but, at the very suggestion, her whole family seemed to rise before her in scorn and derision, and she seemed to hear a chorus of brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, joining in her mother's piercing denunciation.

"You're a fool, Betsy! you're a fool!"

She began to have a distaste for the things, and to entertain daring thoughts of putting them all into the kitchen fire. But she knew that would be an abominably weak and wicked proceeding, and she was not sufficiently hardened to do it.

It was really wearing upon her. She did not sleep, as she had been used, from ten o'clock at night till five or six in the morning; she lost her appetite little by little, and her grateful smile came less readily in response to unintelligible remarks addressed to her by afternoon callers. Old Lady Pratt confided to Harriet that she was "afeard Betsy was goin' to break up early; she seemed to be losing her sperit."

Poor Betsy, as though she had ever had any spirit to lose!

So nearly three months wore away, and Aunt Betsy began to fear that she had sacrificed her peace of mind for good and all.

One Sunday afternoon in December, Brother Ben came in with his youngest daughter Hattie, a girl


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 about twelve years old. They were both lightly sprinkled with snow, and after tramping about a good deal on the oil-cloth in the entry, they came smiling in, bringing a gust of cold air with them.

"Well, Mother; well Betsy," Ben began, immediately. "Hattie's got a surprise for you. She's been having her picture taken again, all dressed up in her Red Riding-hood cape. She looks mighty cute; you just see if she don't."

And Hattie, proud and pleased, exhibited the picture to her admiring elders. The slender, hooded form in the photograph was standing behind the little wicket gate which Aunt Betsy knew so well, and Grandma was much taken with it.

"Well, I never!" she cried. "How cute it is, to be sure! Who but Hattie Pratt would have thought of being taken comin' through a gate?"

And impressed with the weight of her own remark, she repeated it in her shrillest tones to Betsy.

"Who indeed?" thought Betsy, longing, but not daring to lay claim to equal brilliancy.

"It was a pretty idea," she said, meekly. "I wish you'd give me one, Hattie, to put in my photograph album.'

Hattie looked up brightly at her deaf old aunt, and said, with decision, "I don't give these away; I only exchange."


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 "But, Hattie," said her father, "you'd give your Aunt Betsy one! You know she never had her picture taken."

"Then she'll have to, if she wants mine," said the pert little person.

"What did she say?" asked Aunt Betsy, a great resolution already half formed in her mind.

"She says you'd better have your own picture taken before you go askin' other people for theirs," said Grandma, not ill-pleased to hear Betsy snubbed for her unreasonableness in wanting a picture all to herself.

It was now or never, and Betsy knew it.

"Very well," she said, rising, and looking an inch taller. "I'll exchange with you." And she marched out of the room, erect and determined leaving her family speechless with astonishment.

Without giving herself time to think of consequences, she seized her twelve photographs, and hurried back to the sitting-room.

"There!" she said, rather explosively, "you can have your choice, Hattie."

Old Lady Pratt, doubting her senses, seized one of the pictures, looked at it, then looked at Betsy. The likeness was unmistakable; it was "Betsy all over," as she admitted to herself. But she was so divided in her mind between horror at her daughter's duplicity, and admiration of her "smartness," that she let Ben have the first word. He came nobly to the rescue.


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 "Well, Betsy!" he cried. "If you ain't a sly one! Think of that, Mother. To go all by herself, as independent as a chipmunk, and have her picture taken! Well, you have given us a surprise, Betsy!"

Betsy heard nothing of this, and not daring to look at her mother and Ben, she watched Hattie, who was gazing with the greatest interest at the picture. Presently Hattie looked up into her aunt's troubled face, and with a sudden intuition, perhaps the first movement of genuine sympathy she had ever known, the girl took in the situation. She jumped up, and giving her aunt a hearty kiss, cried:

"Thank you so much, Aunt Betsy. It's ever so good. I believe I'd rather have a picture of you than of 'most any body—that I haven't got," she added, truthfully.

Aunt Betsy heard every word of this kind little scream, but she was almost too embarrassed to answer.

"Why, Hattie," she stammered, "I'm so glad! I did n't know"

"Oh! you're a sly one," roared Ben. "I always said you were a sly one, and didn't tell all you knew! Isn't she a sly one, Mother?"

"Well," screamed Mrs. Pratt, "it was mighty clever of you to be taken behind that wicket gate, I must say. And your shot silk has come out beautifully."

Aunt Betsy felt very much as a released convict


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 must feel if met by a band of music and a delegation of distinguished citizens, announcing to him that he had been elected mayor of the city. From the very start she perceived that those photographs were to be the success of her life. Each member of the family insisted upon having one, and all the neighbors admired them and offered to exchange. Aunt Betsy's album filled up fast. Brother Ben had two dozen more struck off at his own expense, and for days and days Aunt Betsy lived in a delightful flutter of excitement. The most indolent of their visitors would exert herself to scream, "Betsy, I hear you've been sitting for your picture"; and not a day went by without an exhibition of the ever dwindling number.

The crowning moment came on New Year's Day, when Brother Ben arrived, bringing a mysterious flat parcel, which he presented to his mother, with a roguish side glance at Betsy. She looked on with lively curiosity, but little prepared for what was coming. There, in a shiny black frame, was an enormously enlarged copy of Betsy's picture, in which the pin seemed almost life-size, and the expression of stern determination was fairly appalling.

Perhaps Old Lady Pratt had never felt so fond and proud of Betsy since she was a bright little child like other children, as she did when she gazed upon that "handsome picture."

It was hung up in the best parlor, over the hair-cloth sofa; and later in the day, when mother and


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 daughter stood side by side before it, the sharp little old lady laid her hand with an affectionate pressure on the other's shoulder, and said: "That's about the smartest thing you ever did, Betsy, I declare for 't."

And I think Betsy went to bed that night the happiest old woman in Green Street.


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ARRIET had always been an authority in her small world; and it was not such a very small world either, as worlds go. Not only was she a person of consequence, now, when she was the head of a family and mistress of a fortune—her importance was of longer standing than that. To begin with, she had been the eldest of a family of brothers and sisters, who had looked up to her with an unquestioning respect, which even an eldest sister is by no means sure of inspiring. But Harriet was "her mother's own child," upright and firm, with that natural self-respect which is a law unto itself. Such an advantage, while sparing its possessor many a brush with those in authority, invests him with a nimbus of infallibility very impressive to younger and less well-balanced minds. Mrs. Anson Pratt, to be sure, was not the woman to yield the reins of government to any rival power, yet her daughter Harriet early became her chief adviser in such small matters of family economy and discipline as she thought unworthy the


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 consideration of her husband's larger intelligence.

Under these favoring conditions Harriet grew to be a tall, self-possessed maiden; and as the handsomest and cleverest young woman of his acquaintance, was early wooed and won by the handsome and clever young business man James Spencer.

Indeed prosperity had marked her for its own from her very cradle. For while she was still in undisputed possession of that infant refuge, her mother's bachelor brother, William Kingsbury, had died, leaving to his little niece a legacy of two thousand dollars. This befell in the good old times when two thousand dollars was a tidy sum, and when money, being properly invested, doubled itself faster than is the case to-day. As their family increased in numbers a trifle faster than the family income grew, Anson Pratt and his wife would often remind one another that "Harriet was well provided for." The Pratts were plain, unworldly people, not at all inclined to pay undue deference to riches; yet one is tempted to wonder whether, if the little Harriet's future had been less assured, she might not sometimes have been called Hattie. The fact of never having known the levelling influences of a nickname is in itself not without weight in the sum of one's personal dignity.

During the many prosperous years that had elapsed since she had become Mrs. James Spencer,


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 Harriet had tasted, one after another, the natural joys and the natural sorrows of life, and now that she was nearing the further boundaries of middle life she had become more and more the practical woman—the woman of affairs; the woman who was oftener appealed to for counsel than for sympathy. Her smooth "false front," her black eyes, her straight nose and well-closed mouth were all calculated to command respect. She was tall, and she felt her height; physically as well as mentally and morally she was unbending.

Even her great sorrow, the death of her husband, which had occurred fifteen years previous, had come to be to her a regrettable fact rather than an active emotion. Years and a strong will had done their work.

Yet for many weeks after James Spencer's death Harriet had felt with consternation that she was not self-sufficient. A strange, unreasoning sense of helplessness had oppressed her, which was even harder to bear than her actual grief.

The most vivid memory which she had of her husband's last days was that of a certain gloomy afternoon in November, when she had sat at his bedside, and they had taken counsel together for the last time. It was several days before his death, which they both knew to be close at hand. She had been sitting, erect and self-contained, while her husband slept, sternly denying herself the luxury of grief, simply facing the inevitable with rigid endurance. The rain was pattering


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 upon the tin roof of the piazza beneath the windows, and the sky was dreary as her thoughts. It seemed to her afterward that that pattering rain, which continued persistently for three days, had worn a groove in her consciousness, causing her to shrink from the sound as from a physical pain. Her family wondered that she should have her piazza roof shingled almost immediately after James' death, and her mother, Old Lady Pratt, declared it to be a "downright piece of extravagance," and hoped she "was n't goin' to be disapp'inted in Harriet after all these years." But Harriet knew that when the shingles dulled the sound of the pattering drops she could think more naturally of her trouble, and it was peculiarly necessary that she should allow nothing to disturb her balance. For the same event which had taken from her a strong support had also imposed upon her unaccustomed responsibilities. On that dreary afternoon, which she remembered so well, her husband had quietly opened his eyes, and without making any other movement to indicate his return to consciousness, he had said: "Harriet, I have left all the money to you."

This simplicity of speech was characteristic of James Spencer. He had been a genial and rather demonstrative man in every-day life, but in matters that touched him deeply he disliked effusion. He could trust his wife to meet him in his own spirit.

"All, James?" she queried.


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 "Yes, all; I leave you to provide for the children according to your judgment."

"It is not the usual way," she said, with an anxious look.

"It would be, if all married people were like you and me."

She sat for some time, pondering his words. Then, "I don't know," she said, "but it seems to me the old way is a very good one. If I had my—" No, she could not say "widow's third" and maintain her composure. "Tell me," she asked instead, "why you have acted so out of the common. I should like to know your reasons."

"Well, Harriet, I look at it in this way. If I had lived out my natural life, there would n't have been any division of property, and I can't see why matters should n't rest just as they are. It's partly on your account," he went on, "and still more on account of the children. You 've always been the best judge of what was good for them. Besides," he added, after a few more words of explanation, "I've been in the habit of considering that the money was as much yours as mine."

Again he paused, and Harriet did not break the silence. Later, when the early dusk was in the chamber, he said, "You and I have always been very united, Harriet."

He held out his hand to her. She took it in both hers.

"Dear girl!" he whispered.


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 If she had been of a brooding nature she would have taken a mournful pleasure ever after in the pattering rain upon the tin roof. But she was indulgent neither to herself nor to others, and as she entered upon her widowhood she deliberately composed her mind to a calm acquiescence, which, like the shingled roof, gave forth the least possible vibration to reminders of her sorrow.

Her four sons and her two married daughters had all escaped the quicksands of youth, and were now well launched upon their several careers. She could not but take pride in her successful guidance, to which she justly attributed a share in this happy consummation. She had now but one child remaining with her in her spacious house, the "little Lucy," as she still was called, a good, obedient girl of eighteen, who had never given her mother a moment's trouble. Hers was a figure that was rarely present to her mother's mind during the anxious vigils which that responsible woman kept. Hers was the name least often mentioned in her mother's prayers; for Harriet was, in her way, a religious woman. She was not as zealous a church member as one would have expected so active and capable a woman to be. Indeed, her own affairs might well absorb her energies. But her private devotions were none the less earnest. She did much of what her mother once called "thinking on her knees." She was sometimes vaguely aware, after a longer maintenance of this attitude than was usual, that


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 she had been silently talking things over rather than offering praise or supplication. Yet these prolonged statements of her case before a perfect Intelligence often brought her to a better understanding of her own needs and her own best course than she could otherwise have reached. If her religious rites lacked piety, they were at least alive with conscience. And though all her children were remembered in these secret communings, little Lucy's name was so unsuggestive of perplexities that it rarely received more than a passing mention.

One brilliant winter's day Lucy came down stairs arrayed in her squirrel tippet and muff, and wearing a little squirrel cap which sat jauntily on her bright brown hair. She had a fine color, and as she stopped at the sitting-room door to say that she was going over to see Grandma and Aunt Betsy, her mother was struck by her good looks. Indeed, so pleasant was the impression she received that Harriet, usually rather unsusceptible to merely "skin-deep" charms, got up from her chair, and still holding her sewing in her hand, stepped to the window to look out. Lucy lingered for a moment at the top of the long flight of stone steps, down which she then passed with a pretty, swaying motion all her own. "Little Lucy" had a good height, and was in other respects more like her mother than any one had yet discovered. As she reached the driveway below she turned abruptly, with a remark-


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 ably bright smile, and bowed. Following the direction of her glance, her mother beheld a surprising apparition. At the side gate stood a young man wearing a corduroy jacket, and holding in his hand a broader-brimmed hat than was then the fashion. His close cropped head thus exposed was a particularly shapely one, though that good point was lost upon his sharp-eyed observer. She meanwhile could see that he was speaking, and if it had not been for Lucy's expressive face she would have supposed that he was a stranger inquiring his way. What, then, was her astonishment when the smiling Lucy went toward the side gate, greeted the still hatless individual with outstretched hand, and, turning, walked away with him in the opposite direction from "Grandma's." Harriet found herself supplied with food for reflection which occupied her the rest of the morning.

Shortly before dinner the truant Lucy appeared, looking flushed and happy, and unmindful of her mother's stern countenance, proceeded to take off her gloves and loosen her tippet. Harriet, apparently intent upon her seam, sewed steadily on, waiting for the child to speak.

"I didn't go to Grandma's after all," said Lucy, stepping to the front window and gazing in an absorbed way across the snow.

Harriet stopped her sewing and looked up, expectant.

"Where did you go?" she asked.


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 "I went to walk with Frank Enderby. We walked away out into the country and it was perfectly glorious."

The girl had turned her glowing face toward her mother.

"Frank Enderby!" Harriet repeated, with increased displeasure. "Was that Italian-looking man, waiting for you at the gate, Frank Enderby?"

"Why, yes! Did you see him? And didn't you know him?"

"I never thought of such a thing. When did he come back?"

"The 14th of last month," said Lucy, with prompt exactitude.

"And have you seen much of him?"

"I've seen him three times, not counting to-day."

"Where have you been seeing him?"

"The first time was at Annie Owen's party. And then I saw him at church the next Sunday; and yesterday he was calling at Annie's when I was there."

"Why didn't you mention him to me?"

"I don't know," said Lucy, promptly taking refuge in a time-honored subterfuge.

"You must at least know that you were behaving very improperly, when you took a long walk with a young man I'm not acquainted with."

"I know, Mother; but I really didn't mean to. He asked me if he might not walk with me to


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 Grandma's, by way of the common, and before we knew it we were going down Elm Street. You have no idea," she continued, with renewed animation, "how lovely the bare branches of the trees were against the sky. I had never noticed them so much myself, till Frank pointed them out to me. He said it was the best lesson in architecture a man could have, just to see how they met and divided. Do you know, mother, if I were a man, I should have been an architect myself."

"But you're not a man, Lucy; and I don't like the familiar way in which you are speaking of a perfect stranger."

"But, Mother, Frank isn't a stranger. I've known him all my life. He used to be ever so good to me when I was a little girl. I was always fond of Frank."

"That was when he was a boy, Lucy. You don't know anything about him since he has grown up. We don't any of us know how he has spent his time in all these years."

"Oh! but I know. He has been studying like a tiger; he told me so himself. And now he is prepared to build theatres, and cathedrals, and—and houses, and make a great name for himself."

"He's got a pretty poor one to start with," cried Harriet, with asperity.

"Theatres and cathedrals," she reflected, as Lucy left the room, scarcely heeding her mother's last remark; "theatres and cathedrals, indeed!


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 Just what I should have expected of him! I shouldn't be at all surprised if he had turned Romanist. Like as not he was hand in glove with all the play-actors in Europe."

This highly colored view of the young man's probable career was due partly to her profound disapproval of all his antecedents, and partly to his "theatrical" appearance. None of the Dunbridge young men wore velvet jackets and broad-brimmed hats, nor did they stand bareheaded while they talked to a little chit like Lucy. Much as ever if they showed Old Lady Pratt herself such deference. To say nothing of his hair, cropped as close as a jail-bird's! A horrible suspicion crossed Harriet's mind. Could he have been in jail?

It was easy to believe anything, however bad, of a son of Frank Enderby. Had not the father drunk himself into the grave, lingering by the way, however, to drink up a decent fortune? Had not his wife been an inefficient, slatternly woman, without backbone enough to keep her children out of rags? What could one expect of the son of such people? The other children had all died. It was more than likely that the inherited vices of the whole family had centred in this boy. And what was he, after all, but a charity boy, supported, ever since his parents' death, by a rich stranger? A self-respecting young fellow would have gone into a store, and worked his way up. But that was not a fine


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Holy Communion is the receiving of the body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread. We should never approach the holy table unless free from grievous sin, and without some previous devout preparation. The benefit we derive from our Communions is in proportion to our devotion and to the preparation we make for them.

ALMIGHTY and eternal God, behold I approach the Sacrament of Thine only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. I come as one sick to the physician of life, as one unclean to the source of all mercy, as one blind to the light of the eternal sun, as one poor and needy to the Lord of heaven and earth.

I beseech Thee, therefore, out of the abundance of Thine immense goodness, deign to heal my infirmity, cleanse me from my sins, illumine my

title: Page:Blessedbegodcomp00call.pdf/79


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 enough career for Frank Enderby's son. He must needs be "educated" for an architect, and fritter away years of his life in Europe, living the while on charity. An architect, indeed! Nothing but a new fangled name for builder. Had not her own father built half the houses in Dunbridge? Good enough houses for anybody to live in. The stately roof over her own head was a lasting monument to Anson Pratt's skill and ability. Anson Pratt's education had consisted in several years of hard work and privation, as a 'prentice boy. And here was this young upstart requiring all Europe to his teacher! It was just the sort of thing that Harriet had no patience with, and she resolved then and there that this would-be builder of Catholic cathedrals should have no countenance from her family.

But Harriet Spencer was reckoning without "little Lucy," as she might have known at first sight of Lucy's preoccupied face at dinner, and "little Lucy," up to this time, was practically an unknown factor even to her mother.

One of Old Lady Pratt's many wise sayings was, "There's nothin' more likely to come to pass than what you ain't lookin' for." Holding which view, she should have been proof against surprise.

Now it surely would have been difficult to imagine anything more in accordance with this philosophy than Lucy's sudden elevation to inconvenient prominence in the family councils. And


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 yet so inconsistent is even the wisest philosopher that when Harriet, a few weeks later, unfolded to her mother this new and growing perplexity, Old Lady Pratt so far forgot herself as to lay down her knitting, take off her steel-bowed spectacles, and exclaim: "Well, I never! That beats me, I declare for 't!"

They were in Old Lady Pratt's sunny sitting-room, with the pretty green three-ply carpet on the floor, and the canary bird singing lustily above the plants in the window. Deaf Aunt Betsy was sitting by, nodding her head over her worsted-work, but she was no interruption to confidences. If she marked the agitation which caused her mother to take off her spectacles, she gave no sign. Betsy rarely knew the preliminary intricacies of the family affairs. She was thought to have had her share of the excitement if she received sufficient warning to enable her to get a sofa cushion worked in time for the wedding. So, when she observed her mother's withered fingers tightly holding the bows of the shining spectacles—careful even in her excitement that the glasses should not get blurred—Betsy merely took a critical survey of her worsteds, and choosing a rich green, proceeded to fill in one of her "heart patterns" with it, rejoicing in the fine contrast it offered to its brilliant crimson neighbor.

"And you feel sure, Harriet, that it ain't jest a passing fancy?"

"I'm afraid it's more 'n that, Mother. Lucy hasn't been the same girl since I took her to task


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 about it. She used to be the evenest of all my children, and now she's either moping about from morning till night, or else she's as high-flying as a long-tail kite. I thought first myself that she'd see the sense of what I said to her, and I didn't believe she'd mind breakin' with him after such a short acquaintance. That's why I made up my mind not to say anything to you about it. I knew just how you'd feel about Frank Enderby's son, and how you'd hate"

"Fudge, Harriet! 'T ain't Frank Enderby I object to. Frank would ha' come out straight enough if he'd had any kind of a wife. It's Frank's wife I never could abide—a weak, shiftless, wishy-washy woman! It always did rile me jest to look at Sally Enderby; and I must say 't would put me out more 'n most anything I can think of to have any of my own kith and kin on more 'n speakin' terms with a child of hers."

"But, Mother, Frank Enderby was a drunkard," Harriet remonstrated.

"I don't care 'f he was. Any man with a spark of sperit would have gone to the dogs with such a wife as that."

Harriet gave a little gasp of consternation.

"Well," she said, when she had recovered herself sufficiently to speak, "I never thought I should live to hear you stand up for a drunkard!"

The old lady gave her a shrewd look, anda gleam of humor came into the bright old eyes—Harriet did take things so seriously.


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 "You'll have to hear a good many surprising things before you're as old as I be," she answered, tranquilly resuming her spectacles and her knitting-work.

The canary, as though startled by his old friend's heresy, had fallen into a sudden silence. For a little while the click of the knitting-needles and Betsy's soft woolly manipulations were the only sounds audible.

Then Old Lady Pratt said: "How would it do to send Lucy away on a visit? May be Jane could have her at her house for a spell."

Jane was a daughter of the house of Pratt who had married somewhat "beneath her." She lived in a smoky manufacturing town about ten miles distant from the genteel suburb where the Pratts "resided." Her husband was an optician in a small way, who had not made a success of life, and one would have supposed that there was not much in the nature of festivity to be enjoyed in Jane's stuffy little house. But there was a theory in the Pratt family that a visit must necessarily be considered as an indulgence, and Harriet answered, with decision:

"No, Mother, I've no idea of humorin' her; she don't deserve it. And besides," she added, "it is n't likely 't would do any good. You know it was just what you tried with Jane herself, and after all she married Henry Bennett before the year was out."

"We'll let by-gones be by-gones," said Old


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 Lady Pratt, rather sharply. She had been "disapp'inted" in Jane's marriage, but she did not propose to cry over spilt milk.

Little Lucy, meanwhile, was having a hard time. Her mother's disapproval was no light affliction, living, as she did, alone with her in that big house, with nobody else to speak to. Harriet had never been a demonstrative mother. She had a certain manner under which she concealed her affection for her children as carefully as she concealed her abundant gray hair beneath a false front. Overt tenderness was not the fashion of the day, nor would it have accorded well with Harriet's self-contained temperament. But though Lucy missed no accustomed warmth, she felt an unaccustomed chill, and it was hard to bear; the more so, as she had gained little in the way of compensation. She "liked" Frank Enderby, and she modestly "hoped" that he liked her. Even in her inmost thoughts Lucy never used a warmer word. Yes, she liked him, and he was very "nice" to her; and how could she break with him as her mother wished her to do? She never thought of disobeying her mother; that was quite out of the question. But, oh! it was very hard.

"I might as well be a nun, and never go anywhere," she had said, in a melancholy little voice, when her mother had carefully laid down the law as to her conduct.

A new look of displeasure had appeared in


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 Harriet's severe face, but she said nothing. She only made a mental note of the little speech as being "another foreign notion."

To-day, while her mother was "gone to Grandma's," Lucy stood at a front window, gazing idly across the snow-covered lawn to the street, as young girls will gaze when the house seems empty, and the outside world is full of possibilities. She told herself she was hoping that Annie Owen might come to see her.

Suddenly she beheld her pet kitten, a frisky little bunch of gray fur, scurrying across the snow toward the street, toward all the dangers that menace little kittens in this wicked world. Quick as thought, Lucy had snatched her Red Riding-hood cape, that was hanging on the hat-tree, and was running swiftly toward the "evergreen corner" in pursuit. She found kitty examining with much interest the shady recesses beneath a dark hemlock, whose branches swept the ground. Puss paid no heed to her mistress' voice. She was stepping daintily about in the snow, lifting her soft little paws very high, and evincing great surprise when her waving tail brought a sudden shower of white powder down upon her from the low-hanging needles.

"Here, kitty, kitty! Come, puss, come!" Lucy called, in persuasive tones. But pussy did not move an eyelid in response.

Now Lucy, whose very decided will was trained to submission in several legitimate direc-


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{| class="_appendix" !No.!!Date!!Location!!Participating Bands !!Activities
 * 1st
 * 20th-29th Aug. 2014
 * Beijing and Inner Mongolia, China
 * 9 military bands from China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, 660 people in total
 * The opening ceremony and marching performance in China's National Indoor Stadium, a parade and a pageant performance at the Olympic Center, and the closing ceremony of the military tattoo and of the Peace Mission-2014 joint counter-terrorism exercise in Zhurihe Training Base in Inner Mongolia
 * 2nd
 * 29th-30th Jun. 2015
 * St. Petersburg, Russia
 * 12 military bands from Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, over 300 people in total
 * A concert and a parade at the Palace Square of Russia and a pageant performance in the Peter and Paul Fortress
 * 3rd
 * 7th-8th Jun. 2016
 * Astana, Kazakhstan
 * 7 military bands from Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, nearly 350 people in total
 * A concert in the concert hall of the Military Museum of Kazakhstan, a pageant performance at Bayterek Square, and a parade for the defense ministers on the square in front of the National Opera House
 * 4th
 * 26th-28th Aug. 2017
 * Shanghai, China
 * 6 military bands from China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia and Tajikistan, 426 people in total
 * The opening ceremony and marching performance in Yuanshen Gymnasium, a pageant performance at the Expo Park of Shanghai, and a second performance in the Yuanshen Gymnasium
 * 5th
 * 21st-25th Apr. 2018
 * Beijing, China
 * 8 military bands from China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, Russia and Belarus, over 400 people in total
 * The opening ceremony and marching performance at the Juyongguan Pass of the Great Wall with the defense ministers in the audience, a parade in the Beijing's Olympic Park and a second performance at the Juyongguan Pass of the Great Wall
 * }
 * 21st-25th Apr. 2018
 * Beijing, China
 * 8 military bands from China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, Russia and Belarus, over 400 people in total
 * The opening ceremony and marching performance at the Juyongguan Pass of the Great Wall with the defense ministers in the audience, a parade in the Beijing's Olympic Park and a second performance at the Juyongguan Pass of the Great Wall
 * }

Acronyms


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 tions, had no mind to be thwarted by her own kitten. She drew her little red cape tightly about her, and diving in among the wet prickly branches, seized Miss Pussy Cat by the back of her neck, and pulled her out. "Bad pussy," she said, in a caressing tone, holding the warm little creature up against her cheek. The red cape and the dark hair were well powdered with snow, but Lucy did not move away directly. It felt warm and sheltered in there among the tall dark hemlocks, with a blue sky for a roof. She stood, lost in a sudden girlish reverie, softly stroking the kitten, which purred contentedly against her chin.

"I wish you liked me half as well as you do that kitten, Lucy," said a voice she knew.

The sidewalk was close at hand, with only a low stone wall between. He stood holding the branches of the evergreens apart, and looking in upon her with a deprecating, beseeching face. It seemed like a part of her reverie, his coming had been so silent. She did not more than half believe it was really he. She looked at him incredulously for an instant, and then, still gazing into his ardent eyes, she said: "Oh, Frank, I do, I do!"

Before he could speak or look an answer, she had turned and fled across the snow.

But she could not flee so lightly the echo of her own daring words, and all that day and evening the impulse of flight was still strong upon her.


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 At last, when bedtime came, Lucy said to her mother, "I wish you would let me go to Aunt Jane's for a visit."

Her eyes were fixed upon the carpet. Her mother thought they looked swollen and red.

"Why do you want to go to Aunt Jane's?"

"I should like to get away from home."

"Why?"

She lifted her eyes to her mother's. Mother and daughter were very much alike at that moment.

"Why?" Harriet repeated.

"It isn't easy to do as you wish me to at home, and"

"And what?"

"I should like to think it over quietly."

There was no defiance in the tone. It seemed to Harriet as though she were listening to her own voice. A peculiar sense of identity with the girl came over her, and she did not resent the speech. If Lucy really did resemble her in character there was nothing to fear. Harriet, with all her determination, would never have rebelled against lawful authority.

"Go to bed now, child," she said, not unkindly; "I will think about it."

When she left Lucy at her Aunt Jane's the next day, with no more enlivening companionship than that of her dull old bachelor cousin, Anson Bennett, Harriet felt some misgivings.

"I don't know 's it's just the place for her,"


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 she said to herself. "If she wants to fret and pine, there's nothing at Jane's to hinder."

For the moment she felt out of humor with herself, and mistrustful of her own wisdom. But this dissatisfaction soon gave place to the much less irksome feeling of annoyance with others. For during Lucy's three weeks' absence, her mother heard so much of young Frank Enderby that she got into a state of chronic displeasure against the world in general. He seemed to have bewitched the neighborhood.

"Just like his father," she would say to herself, rocking so fiercely that she could not sew. "Frank Enderby always had a taking way with him. These good-for-nothing fellows are very apt to."

She felt more determined than ever in her opposition to him. But still his praises resounded. He was going to be a great architect. He had set up an office of his own in the city. He was already paying off the debt to his rich benefactor. It was rumored that he was to have the building of the new Episcopal church in Dunbridge, and that there were to be stained-glass windows in it, and two pulpits. As time went on Harriet began to feel that the whole community was in league against her, and she summoned all her will and diplomacy to avert the crisis which she feared.

One day Old Lady Pratt was passing the afternoon with her daughter. The two women had


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 established themselves comfortably over the iron register, whence issued a mild, well-regulated heat, very pleasing to a well-regulated mind. They talked amicably of this and that, while their knitting-needles clicked accompaniment, and Harriet had begun to feel more at one with herself and with the world at large than had been the case for some time past. Suddenly, as out of a clear sky, the old lady remarked:

T ain't often that you see a handsomer house than this, Harriet."

Now the superiority of the Spencer house over others of the neighborhood was an established fact, and one that hardly called for comment at this late day. Harriet could not but wonder at the turn her mother's thoughts had taken. She soon caught their drift, however.

"I must say," the latter continued, "that I was quite pleased to hear that young Enderby has been heard to say that 'Old Anson Pratt's houses' were a long sight ahead of the new 'French-roof monstrosities.' He called 'em monstrosities, Harriet," she repeated, with a quiet chuckle.

Harriet's face suddenly hardened. "I always thought the French-roof houses very pretty myself," said she.

Her mother glanced at her quickly.

"I hope you ain't so sot agin that boy as you was, Harriet. Far 's I can make out, he seems to be a likely enough young fellow."


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{| style="font-size:100%;"
 * CICA || Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia
 * CMC || Central Military Commission
 * CMCAO || CMC Audit Office
 * CMCDIC || CMC Discipline Inspection Commission
 * CMCPLC || CMC Politics and Law Commission
 * CMCSC || CMC Supervision Commission
 * CMI || civil-military integration
 * COC || Code of Conduct in the South China Sea
 * CPC || Communist Party of China
 * CPCCC || CPC Central Committee
 * CPI || consumer price index
 * DOC || Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea
 * ECM || electronic countermeasures
 * EU || European Union
 * GDP || gross domestic product
 * HADR || humanitarian assistance and disaster relief
 * IT || information technology
 * MAC || Military Area Command
 * MINURSO || United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara
 * MINUSMA || United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali
 * MND || Ministry of National Defense
 * MONUSCO || United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DR Congo
 * NATO || North Atlantic Treaty Organization
 * NBC || nuclear, biological and chemical weapons
 * }
 * ECM || electronic countermeasures
 * EU || European Union
 * GDP || gross domestic product
 * HADR || humanitarian assistance and disaster relief
 * IT || information technology
 * MAC || Military Area Command
 * MINURSO || United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara
 * MINUSMA || United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali
 * MND || Ministry of National Defense
 * MONUSCO || United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DR Congo
 * NATO || North Atlantic Treaty Organization
 * NBC || nuclear, biological and chemical weapons
 * }
 * MINURSO || United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara
 * MINUSMA || United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali
 * MND || Ministry of National Defense
 * MONUSCO || United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DR Congo
 * NATO || North Atlantic Treaty Organization
 * NBC || nuclear, biological and chemical weapons
 * }
 * NATO || North Atlantic Treaty Organization
 * NBC || nuclear, biological and chemical weapons
 * }
 * NBC || nuclear, biological and chemical weapons
 * }