“You ca'n't guess what my present is!” said Uggug, who had taken the butter-dish from the table, and was standing behind her, with a wicked leer on his face.

“You seem to think it very remarkable,” my Lady remarked with some severity, “that your wife should speak the truth!”

“I think it had better come at the beginning of the Banquet—it brings people together so nicely, you know.”

'Poor peter shuddered in despair'

“I shall now return,” said the Professor, when we had walked a few yards: “you see, it's impossible to read here, for all my books are in the house.”

“I dare not ask the question whether there is another!” he said passionately. “It would break my heart to know it!”

“Do,” said I: “I like songs very much.”

“I don't believe no Crocodile never walked along its own forehead!” Sylvie cried, too much excited by the controversy to limit the number of her negatives.

“How truly delightful!” the fair Scientist exclaimed with enthusiasm. “I shall ask our Physiological Lecturer why he never gave us that exquisite Theory!”

“I think it's the heat makes me so drowsy,” I said, hoping, but not feeling quite sure, that I was talking sense. “Am I awake now?”

I felt that I had indeed missed an opportunity: to witness such an event as a nursemaid going 'in two halves' does not occur twice in a life-time!

“I doubt it,” said I. “Even a pun doesn't quite convince me.”

“Permit me to explain. So long as it is let alone, it takes its own course. Time has no effect upon it.”

“That goes without saying, my child,” said her father. “Women are always restless!”

This was a dangerous subject for discussion, Sylvie seemed to think. She returned to the Story. “But what became of the Man?”

“Then I will begin by asking 'Why did you except spiritual blessings?' Is not your mind a part of Nature?”

The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages,*