re, Anthea Devine to--' No no,--confound it!" and
Bellew crumpled up the paper, and tossed it into a distant corner. "I
wonder what Baxter would think of me now,--good old faithful John. The
Haunting Spectre of the Might Have Been,--What a preposterous ass!--what
a monumental idiot I was!"

"Posterous ass, isn't a very pretty word, Uncle Porges,--or continental
idiot!" said a voice behind him, and turning, he beheld Small Porges
somewhat stained, and bespattered with ink, who shook a reproving
head at him.

"True, nephew," he answered, "but they are sometimes very apt, and in
this instance, particularly so."

Small Porges drew near, and, seating himself upon the arm of Bellew's
chair, looked at his adopted uncle, long, and steadfastly.

"Uncle Porges," said he, at last, "you never tell stories, do you?--I
mean--lies, you know."

"Indeed, I hope not, Porges,--why do you ask?"

"Well,--'cause my Auntie Anthea's 'fraid you do."

"Is she--hum!--Why?"

"When she came to 'tuck me up,' last night, she sat down on my bed, an'
talked to me a long time. An' she sighed a lot, an' said she was 'fraid
I didn't care for her any more,--which was awful' silly, you know."

"Yes, of course!" nodded Bellew.

"An' then she asked me why I was so fond of you, an' I said 'cause you
were my Uncle Porges that I found under a hedge. An' then she got more
angrier than ever, an' said she wished I'd left you under the hedge--"

"Did she, my Porges?"

"Yes; she said she wished she'd never seen you, an' she'd be awful' glad
when you'd gone away. So I told her you weren't ever going away, an'
that we were waiting for the Money Moon to come, an' bring us the
fortune. An' then she shook her head, an' said 'Oh! my dear,--you
mustn't believe anything he says to you about the moon, or anything
else, 'cause he tells lies,'--an' she said 'lies' twice!"

"Ah!--and--did she stamp her foot, Porges?"

"Yes, I think she did; an' then she said there wasn't such a thing as a
Money Moon, an' she told me you were going away very soon, to get
married, you know."

"And what did you say?"

"Oh! I told her that I was going too. An' then I thought she was going
to cry, an' she said 'Oh Georgy! I didn't think you'd leave me--even for
him.' So then I had to s'plain how we had arranged that she was going to
marry you so that we could all live happy ever after,--I mean, that it
was all settled, you know, an' that you were going to speak to her on
the firs