lightest movement toward
joining us. I should like, if I had my own way, to ask him to come to
us, to ask him to sit on the rugs and make jokes too, but some sort of
false shame, some sneaky shyness before the boys, hinders me. I am
leaning my elbow on the soft fur of the rug, and my head on my hand, and
am staring up at the stars, cool and throbbing, so like little
stiletto-holes pricked in heaven's floor, as they steal out in systems
and constellations on the night.

"There is dear old Charles Wain," say I, affectionately; "I never knew
where to look for him in Dresden; _how_ nice it is to be at home again!"

"Nancy!" says Algy, gravely, "do you know I have counted, and that is
the _sixteenth_ time that you have made that ejaculation since your
arrival! Do you know--I am sorry to have to say it--that it sounds as if
you had not enjoyed your honey-moon very much?"

"It sounds quite wrong, then," cry I, coming down from the stars, and
speaking rather sharply. "I enjoyed it immensely; yes, _immensely_!"

I say this with an emphasis which is calculated to convince not only
everybody else, but even myself.

"Come, now," cries Bobby, who is farthest off from me, and, to remedy
this disadvantage, begins to travel quickly, in a sitting posture, along
the rugs toward me, "tell the truth--_gospel_ truth, mind!--the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God. Would you
like to be setting off on it over again, to-morrow morning?"

"Of course not," reply I, angrily; "what a silly question! Would _any
one_ like to begin _any thing_ over again, just the very minute that
they had finished it? You might as well ask me would I like to have
dinner over again, and begin upon a fresh plate of soup."

No one is convinced.

"When _I_ marry," continues Bobby, lying flat on his back, with his
hands clasped under his head (we all laugh)--"when _I_ marry, no one
shall succeed in packing _me_ off to foreign parts, with my young woman.
I shall take her straight home, as if I was not ashamed of her, and we
will have a _dance_, and make a clean sweep of our own cake."

"Nancy!" cries Tou Tou, innocently, joining in the conversation for the
first time, "_did_ any one take him for your _grandfather_, as the Brat
said they would?"

"Of course not!" cry I, crossly, making a spiteful lunge, as I speak, at
a _startle-de-buz_, which has lumbered booming into my face. "Who on
earth supposed they would _really_?"

Tou T