utmegs."

_Mother._--"I don't like them either, but I have heard they are very
good preserved, and, besides, some of the others may like them, so let
us see if any are ripe. No! none at all, so it's lucky we are
indifferent about nutmegs at present."

_Schillie._--"All this shrubby stuff about here, looking something like
Jerusalem artichoke, is ginger I think."

_Mother._--"Yes, it is, so we will take some home, as it is very good
for Madame. What nice large roots it has, but I don't call it a shrub.
Shrubs are bushy things."

_Schillie._--"Call it what you like, so we may have some preserved. I
could eat it for breakfast, dinner, and tea. Now, here are your boots
and shoes growing on this Ita palm. Look, my knowing little book says
the leaves are enclosed in cases, which serve for shoes, and this is the
exact description of these tall fellows. Now, June, if we can only take
some home to Jenny she will be as pleased as Punch, and so shall I, for
I did not think your fidgetiness would end in such a fine encouraging
manner."

_Mother._--"But, good lack, as you say, how are we ever to get at them;
this tree must be at least a hundred feet high, and all the others seem
bigger, and all the leaves are at the top; almost sky-high they look."

_Schillie._--"We must cut one down, there is no help for it. I will run
home for a couple of hatchets, and mind you don't stir from hence until
I return, and don't get eaten up, for your life, by anything."

_Mother._--"Suppose you bring the girls with you; we shall never cut it
down ourselves without aching all over, and they will be so glad to get
out of school."

_Schillie._--"I'll be bound they will. But first I shall say only those
are to come out who have been good, for the pleasure of seeing Miss
Gatty screw up her countenance into ineffable disgust, for I know she
will have been naughty."

_Mother._--"You know you will do nothing of the sort, but, on the
contrary, say that Gatty is more wanted than the others."

_Schillie._--"I confess I have a weakness for that child, she is so
preposterously mischievous."

_Mother._--"Now I have a weakness for her, because she is like the
knights of old, 'the soul of honour.' Now she fires up, and now she
ruins her pocket handkerchiefs if anything is said derogatory to her own
country or to her Queen. Did you hear or rather see her this morning
while they were reading their history, when Madame praised Napoleon
Buonaparte at the e