r--that great carmine fire? There
are our elms, with their heads in the sunset, too.

"General," say I, very softly, putting my hand through his arm, and
speaking in a small tone of unutterable content, "I should like to kiss
everybody in the world."

"Perhaps you would not mind beginning with _me_," returns he, gayly;
then--for I look quite capable of it--glancing slightly over his
shoulder at the vigilant couple in the dickey.

"No, I did not mean _really_."

We are trotting alongside of the park-paling. I stand up and try to
catch a glimpse between the coachman and footman, of the gate, to see
whether they have come to meet me.

We are slackening our speed; we are going to turn in; the lodge-keeper
runs out to open the gate; but no, it is needless. It is already open. I
could have told _her_ that. Here they all are!--Barbara, Algy, Bobby,
Tou Tou.

"Here they are!" cry I, in a fidgety rapture. "Oh, general, just look
how Tou Tou has grown; her frock is nearly up to her knees!"

"Do you think she _can_ have grown that much in four weeks?" asks he,
not contradictiously, but a little _doubtfully_, as Don Quixote may have
asked the Princess Micomicona her reasons for landing at Ossime. "But
pray, madam," says he, "why did your ladyship land at Ossime, seeing
that it is not a seaport town?"

"I suppose not," I reply, a little disappointed. "I suppose that her
frock must have run up in the washing."

To this day I have not the faintest idea how I got out of the carriage.
My impression is that I _flew_ over the side with wings which came to my
aid in that one emergency, and then for evermore disappeared.

I do not know _this_ time _where_ I begin, or whom I end with. I seemed
to be kissing them _all_ at once. All their arms seem to be round _my_
neck, and mine round all of theirs at the same moment. The only wonder
is that, at the end of our greetings, we have a feature left among us.
When at length they are ended--

"Well," say I, studiedly, with a long sigh of content, staring from one
countenance to another, with a broad grin on my own. "Well!" and though
I have been away _four_ weeks, and been to foreign parts, and dined at
_table d'hotes_ and seen Crucifixions and Madonnas, and seem to have
more to tell than could be crowded into a closely-packed twelvemonth of
talk, this is all I can find to say.

"Well," reply they, nor do they seem to be much richer in conversation
than I.

Bobby is the first to reg