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888 greatest King in the world." I was telling her how sternly children were brought up fifty or sixty years ago; how they bowed to their father's empty chair, stood when he entered the room, did not dare speak unless they were spoken to, and always called him "sir." "Did they never say 'father'? Did they not say it on Sundays for a treat?" A little while later, after profound reflection, she asked—"God is very old; does Jesus call Him Father?" "Yes, dear; He always called Him Father." It was only earthly fathers after all who did not suffer their babes to come to them.

Oh, the good summer days when merely to be alive is a delight. How easily we were amused! One could always float needles on a bowl of water—needles? nay, little hostile fleets of ironclads which we manœuvred with magnets, and which rammed each other and went down in wild anachronism, galley and three-decker, off Salamis or Lepanto. Did you ever play at rainbows? It is refreshing on a tropical day; but you need a conservatory with a flagged floor and the sun shining at your back. Then you syringe the inside of the glass roof, and as the showers fall in fine spray, there is the rainbow laughing on the wet pavement! When it is "too hot for anything," W. V. makes a small fire of dry leaves and dead wood under a tree, and we sit beside it making believe it is wet and wintry, and glad at heart that we have a dry nook in a cold world.

Still in the last chilly days of autumn, and afterwards, we have our resources. Regiments of infantry and squadrons of rearing chargers make a gay show, with the red and blue and white of their uniforms reflected on the polished oak table. The drummer-boys beat the charge, the buglers blow. The artillery begins; and Highlanders at the double spin right about face, and horsemen topple over in groups, and there is a mighty slaughter and a dire confusion around the man with the big drum—"his Grace's private drum." Then farewell the plumed troop and the big wars! We are Vikings now. Here is the atlas and Mercator's projection. W. V. launches her little paper boat with its paper crew, and a snoring breeze carries us through the Doldrums and across the Line, and we double the Cape of Storms and sniff the spices of Taprobane, and—behold the little island where I was born! "That little black spot, father?" "Yes." "Oh, the dear old place!" I am surprised that the old picturesque Mappemonde, with its elephants and camel trains and walled towns and queer-rigged ships, does not interest her. She will enjoy it later.

The day closes in and the curtains are drawn, and I light a solitary candle. As I bring out the globe, she calls laughingly, "Oh, father, you can't carry the world—don't try!" Here we are in the cold of stellar space, with a sun to give us whatever season we want. With her fan she sets a wind blowing over half the planet. She distributes the sunshine in the most capricious fashion. We feel like icy gods in this bleak, blue solitude. "I suppose God made the suns to keep Himself warm." "He made you, dear, to keep me warm, and He made all of us to keep Him warm." She will get the meat out of that nut later. "I wonder what will happen when everybody is dead. Will the world go whirling round and round just as it does now?"

In all these amusements one consideration gives her huge joy: "You ought to be doing your work, oughtn't you, father?" Once, when I admitted that I really ought, she volunteered assistance. "Would it help you, father, if I was to make you a poem?" "Indeed it would, dear." "Well, then, I must think." And after due thought, this was the poem she made me:

This was after the Man came.

Oh, the Man! I have been day-dreaming, and have forgotten the snowy woods, and the tracks of the wild creatures.

This is the story of the Man.

The Man arrived on the fifth of November. As soon as I reached home in the evening, W. V. had her lantern ready to go out Guy-Fawkesing. "I must go and see mother first, dear;" for mother had not been well. "May I go too, father?" "Certainly, dear."

We found mother looking very delicate and very happy. "We are going out to see the bonfires; we shall not be long. Give mother a kiss, dear." As W. V. approached the pillow, the clothes were gently folded back, and there on mother's arm—oh, the wonder and delight of it!—