at we have disposed of you so advantageously, we are
beginning to be rather ambitious even for _Tou Tou_."

"We think," says Bobby, giving a friendly but severe pull to our
youngest sister's outspread yellow locks, "that Tou Tou would adorn the
_Church_. Bishops have mostly _thin_ legs, so it is to be presumed that
they admire them: we destine Tou Tou for a bishop's lady!"

Hereupon follows a lively fire of argument between Bobby and his sister;
she protesting that she will _not_ espouse a bishop, and he asseverating
that she shall. It lasts the best part of a quarter of hour, and ends by
reducing Tou Tou to tears.

"But come," says Algy, taking his cigar out of his mouth, throwing his
head back, and blowing two columns of smoke out of his nose, "let us
take up our subject again where we dropped it. I should be really glad
if I could get you to own that you and _he_"--(indicating my husband by
a jerk of his head)--"grew rather sick of each other! Whether you own it
or not, I know you _did_; and it would give me pleasure to hear it. You
need not take it personally. I assure you that it is no slur upon
him--_everybody_ does. I have talked to lots of fellows who have gone
through it, and they all say the same."

"Nancy!" says Bobby, abandoning, at length, his persecution of Tou Tou,
and pretending not to hear her last persevering assertion of her
determination not to be episcopally wed--"tell the truth, and shame the
devil. It would be different if we were strangers, but _we_ that have
sported with you since you wore frilled trousers and a bib--come
now--did you, or did you not, kneel three times a day, like the prophet
Daniel, looking eastward or westward, or whichever way it _did_ look,
and yearn for us, and Jacky, and the bun-loaf--come, now?"

"Well, yes," say I, reluctantly making the admission. "I do not say that
I did not! Of course, after having been used to you all my life, it
would have been very odd if I had not missed you rather badly; but that
is a very different thing from being _sick of him_!"

"Well, we will not say _sick_," returns Algy, with the air of one who is
making a handsome concession, "it is a disagreeable, bilious expression,
but it would be useless to try and convince me that _any_ human
affection could stand the wear and tear of twenty-eight whole days of an
absolute duet and not be rather the worse for it!"

"But it was _not_ an absolute duet," cry I, raising my voice a little,
and spea