we found it,' said Sir Gerald; 'or perhaps there'd have been
a row. I saw Githa count 'em all, and she'd have been sure to bully us
about it.'

"'We could have given her the tin for it then,' replied Adolphus, 'only
I'm so hard up just now. I owe a lot of money for sweets and tarts; and
I want to buy a cricket bat this quarter. But hulloa, Gerry, how wet the
beggar is?'

"But the dear gentlemanly fellow, soon remedied this fault, for he wiped
me carefully with his own cambric handkerchief, and I was not the worse,
except that my coronet of plumes looked rather damp, or, as Sir Gerald
facetiously expressed it, "all draggletail!"

"A little sojourn in the glowing Sun, soon restored my feathers to their
early beauty, as I was carefully taken back, no worse for my pleasant
little gambol, and placed in the basket again, on the Duchess's stall.
The hour of opening arrived, one o'clock; but, out upon the cruel Fates!
long before the turning point of noon, lowering clouds had veiled the
bright, too treacherously bright rays of the Sun, and heavy, drenching
showers succeeded, ending in a steady downpour that promised to last out
the day. Oh dear! What ruin and destruction ensued to the elegant
erection of the morning! The marquee leaked in many places from the
sudden violence of the storm, and none of the precautions, hastily
taken, would make it quite water-tight. The unlucky visitors, with their
gay summer dresses all sopped and clinging with wet, crowded in to gain
what little shelter they could; and all was damp, dreary and desolate!
The higher class, more fortunate than the rest, accompanied the Duchess
to the Castle; the stalls were deserted in favour of the younger, and
less particular among the gay party, and the marquee was only crowded by
the more persevering vulgar mob, who were determined to have, as I heard
one of the horrors avow, "their full pennorth," all they could see and
get for their money.

"An evil destiny which seems to have fallen upon me early, relentlessly
followed me now, and ruled my unwilling sacrifice. I was positively sold
from the stall of the Duchess, by her Grace's own maid, to a rich grocer
in the city, for the sum of sixpence! Oh, degradation indeed! Fallen,
fallen, fallen from my high estate indeed was I. No friendly hand
interposed; no better purchaser came, so I was ignominiously wrapped in
paper and put in Mr. Figge's pocket. Nor had ruthless fortune yet done
with me, for when I was c