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An idiot is one who is possessed by a wicked demon, and is to be feared accordingly. There are found current among them a vast number of fairy tales, such as equal in wildness and horror the strangest inventions of oriental imagination. Their tales of ogres and ogresses are unsoftened by any of that playfulness and bonhomie which give such undying charm to the "Thousand and One Nights."

When they viewed it from the road, walking beside the wagon, there was only the team itself added to the unvarying picture. One of the wagons bore on its canvas hood the inscription, in large black letters, "Off to California!" on the other "Root, Hog, or Die," but neither of them awoke in the minds of the children the faintest idea of playfulness or jocularity.

There was Tom Miller, the minister's son, who intended to be a minister himself, and Jimmy Jackson, the shoemaker's boy, as full of fun and playfulness as a kitten, and poor Will Sampson, who stammered, and Harry Wilson, the son of a wealthy banker, and a brave boy too, and John Harlan, the widow's son, pale and slender, the pet of all, and great, stout Hans Schlegal, who bade fair to be a great scholar.

He brushed past us, and did not interrupt what he was saying to her, but gave us, out of the corner of his blue eye, a little sign, which began and ended, so to speak, inside his eyelids, and as it did not involve the least movement of his facial muscles, managed to pass quite unperceived by the lady; but, striving to compensate by the intensity of his feelings for the somewhat restricted field in which they had to find expression, he made that blue chink, which was set apart for us, sparkle with all the animation of cordiality, which went far beyond mere playfulness, and almost touched the border-line of roguery; he subtilised the refinements of good-fellowship into a wink of connivance, a hint, a hidden meaning, a secret understanding, all the mysteries of complicity in a plot, and finally exalted his assurances of friendship to the level of protestations of affection, even of a declaration of love, lighting up for us, and for us alone, with a secret and languid flame invisible by the great lady upon his other side, an enamoured pupil in a countenance of ice.

This was much better: there was playfulness behind the sarcasm now, which peeped out from it. He made the most of that. "We'll do that presently," he said. "Just now I want to engage you and Peppino to dine with me on Christmas Day. Now don't be tarsome and say you're engaged. But one can never tell with you." "A party?" asked Lucia suspiciously.

Bob MacGibbon he was Captain in the 79th leaned forward and tried to put his hand upon the child's shoulder, not unkindly, but with a rough playfulness of the soldier.

"Unless I misjudge you, Mistress Thankful, you can without great sacrifice promise me that you will not see him until I give you my permission," said Washington, with grave playfulness. The swinging light shone full in Thankful's truthful eyes as she lifted them to his. "I do," she said quietly. "Good-night," said the commander, with a formal bow. "Good-night, your Excellency."

Do you not remember telling me that the adoption of God meant a closer relation than any other fatherhood, even his own first fatherhood could signify? You cannot cast me off if you would. Why should you be poor when I am rich? You are poor. You cannot deny it," she concluded with a serious playfulness.

To this a man writes to say that the spread of destitution will never be stopped until we have educated the lower classes in the methods by which the upper classes prevent procreation. The man had the horrible playfulness to sign his letter "Hopeful."

He would never venture on puerile jokes like this of his 'Rellum' a frequent playfulness, when at his ease, which contrasted so unexpectedly with his impenetrable exterior. He was either gauging the unknown person, or feeling that he was being gauged. Monckton Milnes was another. Seeing me correcting some proof sheets, he said, 'Let me give you a piece of advice, my young friend.