decorously past his chair, but once outside the shut door, scamper away like the wind to vent the spirits that have been so tightly bottled up for the last two hours. We all go our different ways—Alice and Milly to stroll about the garden, Dolly and Alan to some mysterious haunt known only to themselves, Jack and I to our birds and beasts. They are a rascally lot, consisting of the lame, the halt, and the blind, and in any eyes but ours would not be worth a pinch of snuff. We have a dog without a tail, a canary without an eye, a raven without a leg, a crippled rabbit, and various other poor wretches who have been compelled by the force of circumstances to part with one or another of their natural appendages.
Papa is safe for another two hours. He and Skippy will tell tales one against the other that would beat Munchausen into fits and make him green with envy; so we let out the rabbits, the parrot, and the raven, and they follow behind as we take our way through the garden and paddock into the orchard.
"Don't you feel rather patriarchal, Jack?" I asked, looking over my shoulder to see that the rabbits are not nibbling at the raven, "like Noah?"
"No, I can't say I do," says Jack. "How he would grin if he could hear you comparing our measly little menagerie to his. "Why, he had thousands of 'em!"
"So he had," I say, considering; “and how they all managed in the ark I can't imagine. They went in two and two, but of course they all had families; and, there was only just room at first, they must have found it a tight fit after a bit."
"Very," says Jack absently. "I say, Nell, will you get up early to-morrow morning?"
"I don't know," I answer doubtfully. "You don't want me to go fishing, do you?" On such occasions I enjoy the proud distinction of fixing wriggling worms on the hooks, while he has all
