"Why is it better?" came the swift, inevitable question.

"Oh, look at those cows!" exclaimed the aunt. Nearly every field along
the line had contained cows or bullocks, but she spoke as though she were
drawing attention to a rarity.

"Why is the grass in the other field better?" persisted Cyril.

The frown on the bachelor's face was deepening to a scowl. He was a
hard, unsympathetic man, the aunt decided in her mind. She was utterly
unable to come to any satisfactory decision about the grass in the other
field.

The smaller girl created a diversion by beginning to recite "On the Road
to Mandalay." She only knew the first line, but she put her limited
knowledge to the fullest possible use. She repeated the line over and
over again in a dreamy but resolute and very audible voice; it seemed to
the bachelor as though some one had had a bet with her that she could not
repeat the line aloud two thousand times without stopping. Whoever it
was who had made the wager was likely to lose his bet.

"Come over here and listen to a story," said the aunt, when the bachelor
had looked twice at her and once at the communication cord.

The children moved listlessly towards the aunt's end of the carriage.
Evidently her reputation as a story-teller did not rank high in their
estimation.

In a low, confidential voice, interrupted at frequent intervals by loud,
petulant questionings from her listeners, she began an unenterprising and
deplorably uninteresting story about a little girl who was good, and made
friends with every one on account of her goodness, and was finally saved
from a mad bull by a number of rescuers who admired her moral character.

"Wouldn't they have saved her if she hadn't been good?" demanded the
bigger of the small girls. It was exactly the question that the bachelor
had wanted to ask.

"Well, yes," admitted the aunt lamely, "but I don't think they would have
run quite so fast to her help if they had not liked her so much."

"It's the stupidest story I've ever heard," said the bigger of the small
girls, with immense conviction.

"I didn't listen after the first bit, it was so stupid," said Cyril.

The smaller girl made no actual comment on the story, but she had long
ago recommenced a murmured repetition of her favourite line.

"You don't seem to be a success as a story-teller," said the bachelor
suddenly from his corner.

The aunt bristled in instant defence at this unexpected attack.

"It