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2 know, you all like vulgar jokes. Not that this is a joke,—far from it, it is a veritable, properly authenticated family"

"Business is business," says Jack, interrupting; "give us the epitaph first, and your remarks after."

"There! burst, not bust," says Jack, reprovingly; "don't expose your ignorance, Nell."

"It is not," I say, stoutly; "burst is quite a leisurely way of doing things. Bust gives you the idea of cracking all over like a chrysalis and flying straight up through the air, as Betsy did."

"I don't think it's as good as Thomas Woodhen," says Alice, gravely. "His widow showed so much sense in adapting herself to circumstances."

"Or that other one," says Milly, looking up—

"I like the baby's best," says Jack; "that one on an infant three months old, you know—

"Nurse told me of one yesterday," says Milly, resting her elbows on a Pinnock, "that she saw with her very own eyes—

The stone was erected by the father."

"That is nasty," says Alice; "the others only show extraordinary levity. I wonder what the people were like who made them up?"