ng hen, the "invaleed goose," the drake with the gapes, the old
ducks in the pen?--Eat a gosling that I have caught and put in with his
brothers and sisters (whom he never recognises) so frequently and
regularly that I am familiar with every joint in his body?

In the first place, with my own small bump of locality and lack of
geography, I would never willingly consume a creature who might, by some
strange process of assimilation, make me worse in this respect; in the
second place, I should have to be ravenous indeed to sit down
deliberately and make a meal of an intimate friend, no matter if I had
not a high opinion of his intelligence. I should as soon think of eating
the Square Baby, stuffed with sage and onion and garnished with green
apple-sauce, as the yellow duckling or the idiot gosling.

Mrs. Heaven has just called me into her sitting-room, ostensibly to ask
me to order breakfast, but really for the pleasure of conversation. Why
she should inquire whether I would relish some gammon of bacon with eggs,
when she knows that there has not been, is not now, and never will be,
anything but gammon of bacon with eggs, is more than I can explain.

"Would you like to see my flowers, miss?" she asks, folding her plump
hands over her white apron. "They are looking beautiful this morning. I
am so fond of potted plants, of plants in pots. Look at these geraniums!
Now, I consider that pink one a perfect bloom; yes, a perfect bloom. This
is a fine red one, is it not, miss? Especially fine, don't you think?
The trouble with the red variety is that they're apt to get "bobby" and
have to be washed regularly; quite bobby they do get indeed, I assure
you. That white one has just gone out of blossom, and it was really
wonderful. You could 'ardly have told it from a paper flower, miss, not
from a white paper flower. My plants are my children nowadays, since
Albert Edward is my only care. I have been the mother of eleven
children, miss, all of them living, so far as I know; I know nothing to
the contrary. I 'ope you are not wearying of this solitary place, miss?
It will grow upon you, I am sure, as it did upon Mrs. Pollock, with all
her peculiar fancies, and as it 'as grown upon us.--We formerly had a
butcher's shop in Buffington, and it was naturally a great
responsibility. Mr. Heaven's nerves are not strong, and at last he
wanted a life of more quietude, more quietude was what he craved. The
life of a retail butcher i