omical enough.

'Oh, nobody, of course!' laughed Theo. 'What a queer mite you are,
deary!' Then she went on gravely, 'Finding the North Pole means trying
to reach and to see, with human eyes, what I, for one, don't believe
human beings will ever live to behold. It is one of God's mysteries
which man has never yet penetrated, perhaps never was meant to
penetrate.'

'What's mysteries?' Queenie of course thirsted to know.

'Dark, wonderful things; possibly things that it might hurt us to see
or to know. I've heard Mr. Vesey say that when the fever to find the
North Pole gets into the blood it never leaves a man until life
perishes. That's why so many have been already lost in the attempt.
They will persist, and nature gives out. But here we are at the
Vicarage pier. Jump out, dear, and I'll tie "The Theodora" safely up.'

CHAPTER IV

BINKS'S BIT O' TEACHIN'

An uproarious welcome awaited the captain's daughters as they stepped
out of their boat on the little pier belonging to the Vicarage.
Splutters and Shutters scrambled to meet the visitors, barking out
hospitality in their customary violent fashion. Behind them hobbled
Binks, eager to help 'Miss Theedory' fasten up the boat, privately
sceptical of the young lady's capacity to do so.

'Oh, Binks! How d'ye do?' politely asked Queenie, who, having
disembarked her waxen family, was endeavouring to protect them from the
frantic welcome of the terriers, both of which seemed ready to eat up
the doll-guests, so glad were they to see them.

'Sadly, missy; I'm but proper sadly!'

'What is it, Binks?' sympathetically asked Theo, shaking out her
blue-cotton skirts, and drawing on a pair of gloves, for Mrs. Vesey was
peculiarly dainty and sensitive about trifles. Though an invalid
herself, the poor lady was always exquisitely dressed, maintaining as a
reason that if the human body be the temple of Christ, then it must be
the bounden duty of the Christian owner not only to keep it wholesome,
but also to adorn it, making it fair without, to match the fairness
within. Not only in her own person did this dainty gentlewoman carry
out her theory, but she looked for it in the persons of her visitors.
Theo invariably respected her wishes by appearing before her trim and
trig.

'Tis jes' they rheumatics, Miss Theedory!' answered Binks cheerfully,
for all the world as if his aches and pains were so many honours. 'But
there, what's 'ee to expec' at sixty-seven?