oxy."

"You don't know what I was going to say."

"It doesn't matter what you were going to say. You couldn't have
brought that sentence into an orthodox conclusion. Oh, please
don't look so angry, now. Yes, I quite see what you mean. You can
think of Katie just as she is now in heaven without being
shocked."

Mary paused for a moment before she answered, as if taken by
surprise at this way of putting her meaning, and then said
seriously--

"Indeed, I can. I think we should all be perfectly happy if we
were all as good as she is."

"But she is not very happy herself, I am afraid."

"Of course not. How can she be, when all the people about her are
so troublesome and selfish?"

"I can't fancy an angel the least bit like Uncle Robert, can
you?"

"I won't talk about angels any more. You have made me feel quite
as if I had been saying something wicked."

"Now really it is too hard that you should lay all the blame on
me, when you began the subject yourself. You ought at least to
let me say what I have to say about angels."

"Why, you said you knew nothing about them half a minute ago."

"But I may have my notions, like other people. You have your
notions. Katie is your angel."

"Well, then, what are your notions?"

"Katie is rather too dark for my idea of an angel. I can't fancy
a dark angel."

"Why, how can you call Katie dark!"

"I only say she is too dark for my idea of an angel."

"Well, go on."

"Then, she is rather too grave!"

"Too grave for an angel!"

"For my idea of an angel,--one doesn't want one's angel to be
like oneself, and I am so grave, you know."

"Yes, very. Then your angel is to be a laughing angel. A laughing
angel, and yet very sensible; never talking nonsense?"

"Oh, I didn't say that."

"But you said he wasn't to be like you."

"_He_! who in the world do you mean by _he_?"

"Why, your angel, of course."

"My angel! You don't really suppose that my angel is to be a
man."

"I have no time to think about it. Look, they are putting those
targets quite crooked. You are responsible for the targets; we
must go and get them straight."

They walked across the ground towards the targets, and Tom
settled them according to his notions of opposites.

"After all, archery is slow work," he said, when the targets were
settled satisfactorily. "I don't believe anybody really enjoys
it."

"Now that is because you men haven't it all to yourselves. You
are jealous of any sort of