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381 FLUTTER-DUCK. 381

" Did I ever say I was a single man?" retorted Emanuel, shrugging his shoulders.

" There ! He confesses it ! " cried his wife in glee. " Come, Emanuel, love," and she threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him passionately. " Do not be obstinate."

" I can't come now," he said, with sulky facetiousness. " Where are you living? "

She told him, and he said he would come when work was over.

" On your faith ? " she asked, with another uneasy glance at Rachel.

" On my faith," he answered.

She moved towards the door, with her draggle-tail of infants. As she was vanishing, he called shame-facedly to the departing children, —

" Well, Joshua ! Well, Miriam ! Is this the way one treats a father? A nice way your mother has brought you up ! "

They came back to him dubiously, with unwashed, pathetic faces, and he kissed them. Rachel bent down to pick up her rabbit-skin. Work was resumed in dead silence.

CHAPTER III.

FLIGHT.

"The goose flew this way and flew that, And filled the house with clamour."

— TENNYSON: The Goose.

Flutter-Duck could not resist rushing in to show the gorgeous goose she had bought from a man in the street — a most wonderful bargain. Although it was only a Wednes-