n't we _choose_, Cousin Antony?"

The little cousins bent above the tray and slowly and passionately
selected, and their absorption in the essence of wintergreen, sassafras,
and peppermint showed him how much this pleasure meant to these rich
children. Their pockets full, they linked their arms in his again.

"I have never had such fun in all my life as I do with you, Cousin
Antony," Bella told him.

"Then come along," he suggested, recklessly. "You must ride once on the
merry-go-round." And before the little Puritans realized the extent of
their impiety, Fairfax had lifted Bella on a horse and Gardiner on an
elephant, paid their fare and started them away. He watched Bella, her
hat caught by its elastic, fallen off her head on the first round, her
cheeks flushed and her eyes like stars, and bravely her straight little
arm stretched out to catch the ring. There was triumph in her cry, "Oh,
Cousin _Antony_, Cousin Antony, I've won the ring!"

Such flash and sparkle as there was about her, with her teeth like
grains of corn and her eyes dancing as she nodded and smiled at him!
Poor little Gardiner! Antony paid for him again and patted him on the
back. There was a pathos about the mild, sweet little face and in the
timid, ineffectual arm, too short and too weak to snap the iron ring on
to his sword. Bella rode till "Annie Laurie" changed to "Way down upon
de Swanee river," and Fairfax's heart beat for Louisiana, and he had
come to the end of his nickels. He lifted the children down.

Bella now wound both arms firmly in her cousin's, and clung to him.

"Think of it, I never rode before, never! All the children on the block
have, though. Isn't it perfectly delightful, Cousin Antony? I _wish_
your legs weren't so long."

"Cousin Antony," asked little Gardiner, "couldn't we go over to the
animals and see the seals fall off and dwown themselves?"

They saw the lion in his lair and the "tiger, tiger burning bright," and
the shining, slippery seals, and they made an absorbed group at the
nettings where Antony discoursed about the animals as he discoursed
about art, and Spartacus talked to them about the wild beast show in
Caesar's arena. His audience shivered at his side.

They walked up the big driveway, and Fairfax saw for the first time the
Mall, and observed that the earth was turned up round a square some
twelve feet by twelve. He half heard the children at his side; his eyes
were fastened on the excavation for the