Rupert,' said Helen, 'I am sure the garden is always quite dry.'

'Except when it is wet,' said Elizabeth.

'That was certainly the case when I was there two years ago,' observed
Rupert; 'I could not stir two steps from the door without meeting with
a pool deep enough to swim a man-of-war.'

'Rupert,' said Elizabeth, 'I hereby give notice, that whosoever says
one single word against the perfect dryness, cleanliness, and beauty,
of dear Dykelands, commits high treason against Miss Helen Woodbourne;
and as protecting disconsolate damsels is the bounden duty of a true
knight and cavalier, I advise you never to mention the subject, on pain
of being considered a discourteous recreant.'

'Lizzie, how can you?' said Helen peevishly.

'How strange it is,' said Anne, 'that so many old family houses should
have been built in damp places.'

'Our ancestors were once apparently frogs,' said Rupert; unhappily
reminding Helen of her sister's parody.

'Well,' said Elizabeth, 'I can understand why monasteries should have
been built in damp places, near rivers or bogs, both for the sake of
the fish, and to be useful in draining; but why any other mortal except
Dutchmen, tadpoles, and newts, should delight in mud and mire, passes
my poor comprehension.'

Rupert pointed to a frog which Dora's foot had startled from its
hiding-place, and said, 'Pray, why, according to my theory, should not
the human kind have once been frogs? leap-frog being only a return to
our natural means of progression.'

'And bull-frogs in a course of becoming stalwart gentlemen,' said Anne.

'Yes, we often hear of a croaking disposition, do not we, Helen?' said
Elizabeth; 'you see both that propensity, and a love of marshes, are
but indications of a former state of existence.'

'And I am sure that your respectable neighbour, Mr. Turner, is a toad
on his hind legs,' said Rupert.

'Minus the precious jewel,' said Elizabeth.

'By-the-bye,' said Rupert, 'is there not some mystery about that
gentleman? This morning I hazarded a supposition, in the drawing-room,
that the lost darling we have heard so much of, might have been
dissected for the benefit of Mr. Turner's pupils, and thereupon arose a
most wonderful whispering between Kate and one of your sweet cousins
there, Lizzie, about some nephew, an Adolphus or Augustus, or some such
name; but the more questions I asked, the more dark and mysterious did
the young ladies become.'

'I wonder if it is possib