"I do not like clever girls, they are so stupid," again interrupted the
Man of Wrath.

"--and unless some kind creature like yourself takes pity on her she
will be very lonely."

"Then let her be lonely."

"Her mother is my oldest friend, and would be greatly distressed to
think that her daughter should be alone in a foreign town at such a
season."

"I do not mind the distress of the mother."

"Oh, dear me," I exclaimed impatiently, "I shall have to ask her to
come!"

"If you should be inclined," the letter went on, "to play the good
Samaritan, dear Elizabeth, I am positive you would find Minora a bright,
intelligent companion--"

"Minora?" questioned the Man of Wrath.

The April baby, who has had a nursery governess of an altogether
alarmingly zealous type attached to her person for the last six weeks,
looked up from her bread and milk.

"It sounds like islands," she remarked pensively.

The governess coughed.

"Majora, Minora, Alderney, and Sark," explained her pupil.

I looked at her severely.

"If you are not careful, April," I said, "you'll be a genius when you
grow up and disgrace your parents."

Miss Jones looked as though she did not like Germans. I am afraid she
despises us because she thinks we are foreigners--an attitude of mind
quite British and wholly to her credit; but we, on the other hand,
regard her as a foreigner, which, of course, makes things complicated.

"Shall I really have to have this strange girl?" I asked, addressing
nobody in particular and not expecting a reply.

"You need not have her," said the Man of Wrath composedly, "but you
will. You will write to-day and cordially invite her, and when she has
been here twenty-four hours you will quarrel with her. I know you, my
dear."

"Quarrel! I? With a little art-student?" Miss Jones cast down her eyes.
She is perpetually scenting a scene, and is always ready to bring whole
batteries of discretion and tact and good taste to bear on us, and seems
to know we are disputing in an unseemly manner when we would never dream
it ourselves but for the warning of her downcast eyes. I would take my
courage in both hands and ask her to go, for besides this superfluity of
discreet behaviour she is, although only nursery, much too zealous, and
inclined to be always teaching and never playing; but, unfortunately,
the April baby adores her and is sure there never was any one so
beautiful before. She comes every day with fresh accounts of th