s to be the representation and effigies. My mother having
just adorned a very small frock with a very smart braid, is holding it
out at arm's length, the more to admire the effect. Blanche, though
leaning both hands on my mother's shoulder, is not regarding the frock,
but glances toward _Pisistratus_, who, seated near the fire leaning back
in his chair, and his head bent over his breast, seems in a very bad
humor. Uncle Roland, who has become a great novel reader, is deep in the
mysteries of some fascinating Third Volume. Mr. Squills has brought _The
Times_ in his pocket for his own especial profit and delectation, and is
now bending his brows over "the state of the money market," in great
doubt whether railway shares can possibly fall lower. For Mr. Squills,
happy man! has large savings, and does not know what to do with his
money; or, to use his own phrase, "how to buy in at the cheapest, in
order to sell out at the dearest."

_Mr. Caxton_, musingly.--"It must have been a monstrous long journey. It
would be somewhere hereabouts I take it, that they would split off."

_My Mother_, mechanically, and in order to show Austin that she paid, him
the compliment of attending to his remarks--"Who split off, my dear?"

"Bless me, Kitty," said my father, in great admiration, "you ask just the
question which it is most difficult to answer. An ingenious speculator on
races contends that the Danes, whose descendants make the chief part of
our northern population, (and indeed if his hypothesis could be correct,
we must suppose all the ancient worshipers of Odin,) are of the same
origin as the Etrurians. And why, Kitty, I just ask you, why?"

My mother shook her head thoughtfully, and turned the frock to the other
side of the light.

"Because, forsooth," cried my father, exploding--"because the Etrurians
called their gods 'the AEsar,' and the Scandinavians called theirs 'the
AEsir, or Aser! And where do you think he puts their cradle?"

"Cradle!" said my mother, dreamingly--"it must be in the nursery."

_Mr. Caxton_.--"Exactly--in the nursery of the human race--just here,"
and my father pointed to the globe; "bounded, you see, by the River
Halys, and in that region which, taking its name from Ees or As, (a word
designating light or fire) has been immemorially called _Asia_. Now,
Kitty, from Ees or As our ethnological speculator would derive not only
Asia, the land, but AEsar or Aser, its primitive inhabitants. Hence he
suppos