Page:Literary Lapses - Leacock - 1919.djvu/232

  ingenious arrangement of a falling brick with a string attached to the child's toe.

At the entrance of the visitor she started up in bed. "Whoop," she yelled, "I am to be Queen of the May, mother, ye-e!"

Then perceiving Tennyson in the doorway, "If that's a caller," she said, "tell him to call me early."

The shock caused the brick to fall. In the subsequent confusion Alfred modestly withdrew to the sitting-room.

"At this rate," he chuckled, "I shall not have long to wait. A few weeks of that strain will finish her."

Six months had passed.

It was now mid-winter.

And still the girl lived. Her vitality appeared inexhaustible.

She got up earlier and earlier. She now rose yesterday afternoon.

At intervals she seemed almost sane, and spoke in a most pathetic manner of her grave and the probability of the sun shining on