elow--laying my fair-haired head on his
shoulder:

"What _could_ have made you marry such a _shrew_? I believe it was the
purest philanthropy."

"That was it!" he answers, fondly. "To save any other poor fellow from
such an infliction!"

"Quite unnecessary!" rejoin I, shaking my head. "If you had not married
me, it is very certain that nobody else would!"

Another day has come. It is hot afternoon. Sir Roger is reading the
_Times_ in our balcony, and I am strolling along the dazzling streets by
myself. What can equal the white glare of a foreign town? I am strolling
along by myself under a big sun-shade. My progress is slow, as my nose
has a disposition to flatten itself against every shop-window--saving,
perhaps, the cigar ones. A grave problem is engaging my mind. What
present am I to take to father? It is this question which moiders our
young brains as often as his birthday recurs. My thoughts are trailing
back over all our former gifts to him. This year we gave him a
spectacle-case (he is short-sighted); last year a pocket-book; the year
before, an inkstand. What is there left to give him? A cigar-case? He
does not smoke. A hunting-flask? He has half a dozen. A Norwegian stove?
He does not approve of them, but says that men ought to be satisfied
with sandwiches out shooting. A telescope? He never lifts his eyes high
enough above our delinquencies to look at the stars. I cannot arrive at
any approximation to a decision. As I issue from a china-shop, with a
brown-paper parcel under my arm, and out on the hot and glaring flags, I
see a young man come stepping down the street, with a long, loose,
British stride; a young man, pale and comely, and a good deal worn out
by the flies, that have also eaten most of me.

"How are you?" cry I, hastily shifting my umbrella to the other hand, so
as to have my right one ready to offer him. "Are not these streets
blinding? I am blinking like an owl in daylight!--so you never came to
see us, after all!"

"It was so likely that I should!" he answers, with his nose in the air.

"Very likely!" reply I, taking him literally; "so likely that I have
been expecting you every day."

"You seem to forget--confound these flies!"--(as a stout blue-bottle
blunders into one flashing eye)--"you seem to forget that you told me,
in so many words, to stay away."

"You _were_ huffy, then!" say I, with an accent of incredulity. "Sir
Roger was right! he said you were, and I could not believe i