n,
very fine Parian, too, so that one would expect to find a glass cover
over him: but no, the glass cover stood over a cat and a cat made of
worsted, too: still it was a very old cat, fifty years old in fact.
There was another young person there, young like the boy leaning on a
greyhound, and she, too, was of Parian: she was very fair in front, but
behind--ah, that is a secret which is not quite time yet to tell. One
other stood there, at least she seemed to stand, but nobody could see
her feet, for her dress was so very wide and so finely flounced. She was
the china girl that rose out of a pen-wiper.

The fire in the grate below was of soft coal, and flashed up and down,
throwing little jets of flame up that made very pretty foot-lights. So
here was a stage, and here were the actors, but where was the audience?
Oh, the Audience was in the arm-chair in front. He had a special seat;
he was a critic, and could get up when he wanted to, when the play
became tiresome, and go out.

"It is painful to say such things out loud," said the
Boy-leaning-against-a-greyhound, with a trembling voice, "but we have
been together so long, and these people round us never will go away.
Dear girl, will you?--you know." It was the Parian girl that he spoke
to, but he did not look at her; he could not, he was leaning against the
greyhound; he only looked at the Audience.

"I am not quite sure," she coughed. "If, now, you were under a glass
case."

"I am under a glass case," spoke up the Cat-made-of-worsted. "Marry me.
I am fifty years old. Marry me, and live under a glass case."

"Shocking!" said she. "How can you? Fifty years old, too! That would
indeed be a match!"

"Marry!" muttered the bronze Monk-reading-a-book. "A match! I am full of
matches, but I don't marry. Folly!"

"You stand up very straight, neighbor," said the Cat-made-of-worsted.

"I never bend," said the bronze Monk-reading-a-book. "Life is earnest. I
read a book by candle. I am never idle."

The Cat-made-of-worsted grinned to himself.

"You've got a hinge in your back," said he, "they open you in the
middle; your head flies back. How the blood must run down. And then
you're full of brimstone matches. He! he!" and the Cat-made-of-worsted
grinned out loud. The Boy-leaning-against-a-greyhound spoke again, and
sighed:

"I am of Parian, you know, and there is no one else here of Parian
except yourself."

"And the greyhound," said the Parian girl.

"Yes, and the