ds which he had seen around the setting sun. But, before he had
hammered out the very first rhyme, the door opened, and Primrose and
Periwinkle made their appearance.

"Go away, children! I can't be troubled with you now!" cried the
student, looking over his shoulder, with the pen between his fingers.
"What in the world do you want here? I thought you were all in bed!"

"Hear him, Periwinkle, trying to talk like a grown man!" said
Primrose. "And he seems to forget that I am now thirteen years old,
and may sit up almost as late as I please. But, Cousin Eustace, you
must put off your airs, and come with us to the drawing-room. The
children have talked so much about your stories, that my father wishes
to hear one of them, in order to judge whether they are likely to do
any mischief."

"Poh, poh, Primrose!" exclaimed the student, rather vexed. "I don't
believe I can tell one of my stories in the presence of grown people.
Besides, your father is a classical scholar; not that I am much afraid
of his scholarship, neither, for I doubt not it is as rusty as an old
case-knife by this time. But then he will be sure to quarrel with the
admirable nonsense that I put into these stories, out of my own head,
and which makes the great charm of the matter for children, like
yourself. No man of fifty, who has read the classical myths in his
youth, can possibly understand my merit as a reinventor and improver
of them."

"All this may be very true," said Primrose, "but come you must! My
father will not open his book, nor will mamma open the piano, till
you have given us some of your nonsense, as you very correctly call
it. So be a good boy, and come along."

Whatever he might pretend, the student was rather glad than otherwise,
on second thoughts, to catch at the opportunity of proving to Mr.
Pringle what an excellent faculty he had in modernizing the myths of
ancient times. Until twenty years of age, a young man may, indeed, be
rather bashful about showing his poetry and his prose; but, for all
that, he is pretty apt to think that these very productions would
place him at the tiptop of literature, if once they could be known.
Accordingly, without much more resistance, Eustace suffered Primrose
and Periwinkle to drag him into the drawing-room.

It was a large, handsome apartment, with a semi-circular window at one
end, in the recess of which stood a marble copy of Greenough's Angel
and Child. On one side of the fireplace there were m