t?"

"There are _not_ six," cry I, impatiently. "I do not know what put it
into your head that there were _six_; there are only _three_."

"You certainly told me there were six."

"I am _he_ in petticoats," say I, resuming the thread of my own
narrative; "everybody sees the likeness. One day when he was three or
four years younger, we dressed him up in my things--my gown and bonnet,
you know--and all the servants took him for me; they only found him out
because he held up his gown so awkwardly high, and gave it such great
kicks to keep it out of his way, that they saw his great nailed boots!
Sir Roger thought we were twins the first time he saw us."

"Sir Roger!" repeats the young man, as if reminded by the name of
something he had meant to say. "Oh, by-the-by, if you will not think me
impertinent for asking, where did you first fall in with Sir Roger? I
should have thought that he was rather out of your beat; you do not hail
from his part of the world, do you?"

"No," reply I, my thoughts traveling back to the day when we made taffy,
and tumbled over each other, hot and sticky to the window, to see the
dog-cart bearing the stranger roll up the drive. "I never saw him till
this last March, when he came to stay with us."

"To stay with you?"

"Yes," reply I, thinking of our godless jokes about his wig and his
false calves, and smiling gently to myself; "he was an old friend of
father's."

"A contemporary, I suppose?" (a little inquisitively).

"Yes, he was at school with father," I answer; and the moment I have
given utterance to the abhorred formula I repent.

"At school with him?" (speaking rather slowly, and looking at me, with a
sort of flickering smile in lips and eyes). "Oh, I see!"

"What do you see?" cry I, sharply.

"Nothing, nothing! I only meant to say I understand, I comprehend."

"There is nothing to understand," reply I, brusquely, and rising. "I am
tired--I shall go home!"

We walk back rather silently; there is nothing so trying to eyes and
mind as picture-seeing, and I am fagged, and also indefinitely, yet
certainly, cross. As we reach the door of the Saxe, I hold out my hand.

"Now that we have come to the end of our walk," say I, "and that you
cannot think that I am _hinting_ to you, I will tell you that I think it
was very ill-mannered and selfish of you not to _insist_ on carrying
_this_" (holding out the brown-paper parcel); "there is not _one_ of the
boys--not even Bobby, whom we