ll your fancy painted it?"

Sir George has sunk into a chair with all the heaviness of an old man,
and the boy has crept between his knees and is looking up at him with
his beautiful little face all aglow.

"Oh! 'twas lovely!" says he. "'Twas splendid! There was lights all over
the house. 'Twas like night--only 'twasn't night, and that was grand!
And there were heaps of people. A whole town was there. And there
were----Grandpa! why did they have lamps there when it was daytime?"

"Because they have no windows in a theatre," says Sir George, patting
the little hot, fat hand that is lying on his arm, with a strange
sensation of pleasure in the touch of it.

"No windows?" with big eyes opened wide.

"Not one."

"Then why have we windows?" asks Tommy, with an involuntary glance round
him. "Why are there windows anywhere? It's ever so much nicer without
them. Why can't we have lamps always, like the theatre people?"

"Why, indeed?" says Mr. Browne, sympathetically. "Sir George, I hope you
will take your grandson's advice to heart, and block up all these absurd
windows, and let a proper ray of light descend upon us from the honest
burner. Who cares for strikes? Not I!"

"Well, Tommy, we'll think about it," says Sir George. "And now go on.
You saw----"

"Bluebeard!" says Tommy, almost roaring in the excitement of his
delight. "A big Bluebeard, and he was just like the pictures of him at
home, with his toes curled up and a red towel round his head and a blue
night-gown and a smiter in his hand."

"A cimeter, Tommy?" suggests his mother, gently.

"Eh?" says Tommy. "Well, it's all the same," says he, after a pause,
replete with deep research and with a truly noble impartiality.

"It is, indeed!" says Mr. Browne, open encouragement in his eye. "And so
you saw Mr. Bluebeard! And did he see you?"

"Oh! he saw me!" cries Mabel, in a little whimpering' tone. "He looked
straight into the little house where we were, and I saw his eye--his
horrid eye!" shaking her small head vigorously--"and it ran right into
mine, and he began to walk up to me, and I----"

She stops, her pretty red lips quivering, her blue eyes full of tears.

"Oh, Mabel was so frightened!" says Tommy, the Bold. "She stuck her nose
into nurse's fur cape and roared!"

"I didn't!" says Mabel promptly.

"You did!" says Tommy, indignant at being contradicted, "and she said it
would never be worth a farthing ever after, and----Well, any way, you
know, Ma