said
I was a shocking girl. Can't think why papa giggled the next moment, if
I was a shocking girl: it is all puzzle--puzzle--puzzle."

One day she said, "Can you tell me where all the bad people are buried?
for that puzzles me dreadful."

Compton was posed at first, but said at last he thought they were
buried in the churchyard, along with the good ones.

"Oh, indeed!" said she, with an air of pity. "Pray, have you ever been
in the churchyard, and read the writings on the stones?"

"No."

"Then I have. I have read every single word; and there are none but
good people buried _there,_ not one." She added, rather pathetically,
"You should not answer me without thinking, as if things were easy,
instead of so hard. Well, one comfort, there are not many wicked people
hereabouts; they live in towns; so I suppose they are buried in the
garden, poor things, or put in the water with a stone."

Compton had no more plausible theory ready, and declined to commit
himself to Ruperta's; so that topic fell to the ground.

One day he found her perched as usual, but with her bright little face
overclouded.

By this time the intelligent boy was fond enough of her to notice her
face. "What's the matter, Perta?"

"Ruperta. The matter? Puzzled again! It is very serious this time."

"Tell me, Ruperta."

"No, dear."

"Please."

The young lady fixed her eyes on him, and said, with a pretty
solemnity, "Let us play at catechism."

"I don't know that game."

"The governess asks questions, and the good little boy answers. That's
catechism. I'm the governess."

"Then I'm the good little boy."

"Yes, dear; and so now look me full in the face."

"There--you're very pretty, Ruperta."

"Don't be giddy; I'm hideous; so behave, and answer all my questions.
Oh, I'm so unhappy. Answer me, is young people, or old people,
goodest?"

"You should say best, dear. Good, better, best. Why, old people, to be
sure--much."

"So I thought; and that is why I am so puzzled. Then your papa and mine
are much betterer--will that do?--than we are?"

"Of course they are."

"There he goes! Such a child for answering slap bang I never."

"I'm not a child. I'm older than you are, Ruperta."

"That's a story."

"Well, then, I'm as old; for Mary says we were born the same day--the
same hour--the same minute."

"La! we are twins."

She paused, however, on this discovery, and soon found reason to doubt
her hasty conclusion. "No such thing