ene might have been realized."

"You are joking, whilst I am taking the matter _au serieux_."

"That order is usually reversed; generally you are the quiz and I am
the quizzee."

"You will admit, at all events, that I would not have permitted the
bear to eat you."

Here Sophia burst into a peal of laughter, and vanished with her
gazelle.

FOOTNOTES:

[D] Aulus Gellius, VII., 8.

[E] Macrobius, _Saturn_, XL, 4.

[F] Plutarch.

[G] Pliny, IX., 53.

CHAPTER XVI.

SEPARATION--GUELPHS AND GHIBELINES--MONTAGUES AND
CAPULETS--SADNESS--THE REUNION--JOCKO AND HIS EDUCATION--THE
ENTERTAINMENTS OF A KING--THE MULES OF NERO AND THE ASSES OF
POPPAEA--HERCULES AND ACHILLES--LIBERTY AND EQUALITY--SEMIRAMIS AND
ELIZABETH--CHRISTIANITY AND THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER--THE WILLISONIAN
METHOD--MORAL DISCIPLINE VERSUS BIRCH.

Winter was now drawing near, with its storms and deluges. Becker
therefore felt that it was necessary to make some alterations in their
domestic arrangements; and he saw that, for this season at all events,
the two families must be separated--this was to create a desert within
a desert; but propriety and convenience demanded the sacrifice.

It was decided that Wolston and his family should be quartered at
Rockhouse, whilst Becker and his family should pass the rainy season
at Falcon's Nest, where, though these aerial dwellings were but
indifferently adapted for winter habitations, they had passed the
first year of their sojourn in the colony. The rains came and
submerged the country between the two families, thus, for a time,
cutting off all communication between them. The barriers that
separated the Guelphs from the Ghibelines, the Montagues from the
Capulets, the Burgundians from the Armagnacs, and the House of York
from that of Lancaster, could not have been more impenetrable than
that which now existed between the Wolstons and Beckers.

Whenever a lull occurred in the storm, or a ray of sunshine shot
through the murky clouds, all eyes were mechanically turned to the
window, but only to turn them away again with a sigh; so completely
had the waters invaded the land, that nothing short of the dove from
Noah's Ark could have performed the journey between Rockhouse and
Falcon's Nest.

Dulness and dreariness reigned triumphant at both localities. The calm
tranquility that Becker's family formerly enjoyed under similar
circumstances had fled. They felt that happiness was no longer to be
enjo