head from the window over the handle, or you would be played upon
by the garden-engine."

"And at your own homes," resumed the Bride of the Colonel, "it would be
just as bad. You would be sent to bed, or something equally undignified.
Again: how would you support us?"

The Pirate-Colonel replied, in a courageous voice, "By rapine!" But his
Bride retorted, suppose the grown-up people wouldn't be rapined? Then,
said the Colonel, they should pay the penalty in Blood. But suppose they
should object, retorted his bride, and wouldn't pay the penalty in Blood
or anything else?

A mournful silence ensued.

"Then do you no longer love me, Alice?" asked the Colonel.

"Redforth! I am ever thine," returned his Bride.

"Then do you no longer love me, Nettie?" asked the present writer.

"Tinkling! I am ever thine," returned my Bride.

We all four embraced. Let me not be misunderstood by the giddy. The
Colonel embraced his own Bride, and I embraced mine. But two times two
make four.

"Nettie and I," said Alice, mournfully, "have been considering our
position. The grown-up people are too strong for us. They make us
ridiculous. Besides, they have changed the times. William Tinkling's
baby-brother was christened yesterday. What took place? Was any king
present? Answer, William."

I said No, unless disguised as great-uncle Chopper.

"Any queen?"

There had been no queen that I knew of at our house. There might have
been one in the kitchen; but I didn't think so, or the servants would
have mentioned it.

"Any fairies?"

None that were visible.

"We had an idea among us, I think," said Alice, with a melancholy smile,
"we four, that Miss Grimmer would prove to be the wicked fairy, and
would come in at the christening with her crutch-stick, and give the
child a bad gift? Was there anything of that sort? Answer, William."

[Illustration: We had an idea among us ... that Miss Grimmer would prove
to be the wicked fairy.]

I said that Ma had said afterwards (and so she had), that great-uncle
Chopper's gift was a shabby one; but she hadn't said a bad one. She had
called it shabby, electrotyped, second-hand, and below his income.

"It must be the grown-up people who have changed all this," said Alice.
"_We_ couldn't have changed it, if we had been so inclined, and we never
should have been. Or perhaps Miss Grimmer _is_ a wicked fairy, after
all, and won't act up to it, because the grown-up people have
persuaded her not to. E