en
brightening of his expressive face, "he is up your petticoats."

"Tommy! What a horrid, bad boy you are!" cries poor Joyce, wildly. She
gives a frantic shake to the petticoats in question. "Find him at once,
sir! He must be somewhere down there. I shan't have an instant's peace
until I know where he is."

"I can't see him anywhere," says Tommy. "Maybe you'll feel him
presently, and then we'll know. He isn't on your leg now, is he?"

"Oh! don't!" cries Joyce, who looks as if she is going, to cry. She
gives herself another vigorous shake, and stands away from the spot
where Tommy evidently thinks the noxious beast in question may be, with
her petticoats held carefully up in both hands. "Oh, Tommy, darling! Do
find him. He can't be up my petticoats, can he?"

"He can. There's, nothing they can't do," says Tommy, who is plainly
revelling in the storm he has raised. Her open fright is beer and
skittles to him. "Why did you stir? He was as good as gold, until then;
and there wasn't anything to be afraid of. I was watching him. When he
got to your ear I'd have told you. I wouldn't like him to make you deaf,
but I wanted to see if he would go to your ear. But you spoiled all my
fun, and now--where is he now?" asks Tommy, with an awful suggestion in
his tone.

"On the grass, perhaps," says Joyce, miserably, looking round her
everywhere, and even on her shoulder. "I don't feel him anywhere."

"Sometimes they stay quite a long time, and then they crawl!" says
Tommy, the most horrible anticipation in his tone.

"Really, Tommy," cries his aunt, indignantly, "I do think you are the
most abominable boy I ever met in my life. There, go away! I certainly
shan't read another line to you--either now--or--ever!"

"What is the matter?" asks a voice at this moment, that sounds close to
her elbow. She turns round with a start.

"It is you, Felix!" says she, coloring warmly. "Oh--oh, it's nothing.
Only Tommy. And he said I had an earwig on me. And I was just a little
unnerved, you know."

"And no wonder," says her lover, with delightful sympathy. "I can't bear
that sort of wild animal myself. Tommy, you ought to be ashamed of
yourself. When you saw him why didn't you rise up and slay the destroyer
of your aunt's peace? There; run away into the hall. You will find on
one of the tables a box of chocolate. I told Mabel it was there; perhaps
she----"

Like an arrow from the bow, Tommy departs.

"He has evidently his doubts of Mab