my pace.

"What do you read, Lady Crawford?" said my cloak and hat, in tones that
certainly were marvellously good imitations of my voice.

"What do you say, Malcolm?" asked the deaf old lady, too gentle to show
the ill-humor she felt because of the interruption to her reading.

"I asked what do you read?" repeated Dorothy.

"The 'Chronicle of Sir Philip de Comynges,'" responded Lady Crawford.
"Have you read it? It is a rare and interesting history."

"Ah, indeed, it is a rare book, a rare book. I have read it many times."
There was no need for that little fabrication, and it nearly brought
Dorothy into trouble.

"What part of the 'Chronicle' do you best like?" asked Aunt Dorothy,
perhaps for lack of anything else to say. Here was trouble already for
Malcolm No. 2.

"That is hard for me to say. I so well like it all. Perhaps--ah--perhaps I
prefer the--the ah--the middle portion."

"Ah, you like that part which tells the story of Mary of Burgundy,"
returned Aunt Dorothy. "Oh, Malcolm, I know upon what theme you are always
thinking--the ladies, the ladies."

"Can the fair Lady Crawford chide me for that?" my second self responded
in a gallant style of which I was really proud. "She who has caused so
much of that sort of thought surely must know that a gentleman's mind
cannot be better employed than--"

"Malcolm, you are incorrigible. But it is well for a gentleman to keep in
practice in such matters, even though he have but an old lady to practise
on."

"They like it, even if it be only practice, don't they?" said Dorothy,
full of the spirit of mischief.

"I thank you for nothing, Sir Malcolm Vernon," retorted Aunt Dorothy with
a toss of her head. "I surely don't value your practice, as you call it,
one little farthing's worth."

But Malcolm No. 2, though mischievously inclined, was much quicker of wit
than Malcolm No. 1, and she easily extricated herself.

"I meant that gentlemen like it, Lady Crawford."

"Oh!" replied Lady Crawford, again taking up her book. "I have been
reading Sir Philip's account of the death of your fair Mary of Burgundy.
Do you remember the cause of her death?"

Malcolm No. 2, who had read Sir Philip so many times, was compelled to
admit that he did not remember the cause of Mary's death.

"You did not read the book with attention," replied Lady Crawford. "Sir
Philip says that Mary of Burgundy died from an excess of modesty."

"That disease will never depopulate England," was