matches upstairs," I said, and went up to
look for them. I stayed aloft ten minutes and hoped that by that time
she would have passed on to some other topic. I did not waste my time,
however; I looked everywhere for the "Children's Book of a Million
Reasons," until I remembered it was under the dining-room table taking
the place of a missing caster.

When I slunk into the living room again I hastily suggested a game of
double Canfield, but Titania's brow was still perplexed. Looking across
at me with that direct brown gaze that would compel even a milliner to
relent, she asked:

"What is an equinox?"

I tried to pass it off flippantly.

"A kind of alarm clock," I said, "that lets the bulbs and bushes know
it's time to get up."

"No; but honestly, Bob," she said, "I want to know. It's something about
an equal day and an equal night, isn't it?"

"At the equinox," I said sternly, hoping to overawe her, "the day and
the night are of equal duration. But only for one night. On the
following day the sun, declining in perihelion, produces the customary
inequality. The usual working day is much longer than the night of
relaxation that follows it, as every toiler knows."

"Yes," she said thoughtfully, "but how does it work? It says something
in this article about the days getting longer in the Northern
Hemisphere, while they are getting shorter in the Southern."

"Of course," I agreed, "conditions are totally different south of Mason
and Dixon's line. But as far as we are concerned here, the sun,
revolving round the earth, casts a beneficent shadow, which is generally
regarded as the time to quit work. This shadow--"

"I thought the earth revolved round the sun," she said. "Wasn't that
what Galileo proved?"

"He was afterward discovered to be mistaken," I said. "That was what
caused all the trouble."

"What trouble?" she asked, much interested.

"Why, he and Socrates had to take hemlock or they were drowned in a butt
of malmsey, I really forget which."

"Well, after the equinox," said Titania, "do the days get longer?"

"They do," I said; "in order to permit the double-headers. And now that
daylight saving is to go into effect, equinoxes won't be necessary any
more. Very likely the pan-Russian Soviets, or President Wilson, or
somebody, will abolish them."

"June 21 is the longest day in the year, isn't it?"

"The day before pay-day is always the longest day."

"And the night the cook goes out is always the l