ble."

"I do _not_ know what you mean, Peppy," (the lady's name when
unabbreviated was Penelope, but as she never was so named by any one,
she might as well not have had the name at all), "and," continued Mr
Stuart, emphatically, "I would advise _you_ to be reasonable and explain
yourself."

"Dear George, how _can_ you," said Miss Peppy, who talked with great
volubility, and who never for a moment ceased to bustle about the room
in a series of indescribable, as well as unaccountable, not to say
unnecessary, preparations for the morning meal, which had already been
prepared to perfection by Mrs Niven; "you surely don't forget--things
do happen _so_ surprisingly at times--really, you know, I _can not_ see
why we should be subjected to such surprises. I'm quite sure that no
good comes of it, and then it makes one look _so_ foolish. Why human
beings were made to be surprised so, _I_ never could understand. No one
ever sees pigs, or horses, or cows surprised, and they seem to get
through life a great deal easier than we do, at all events they have
less worry, and they never leave their children at their neighbour's
doors and run away--what _can_ have got it?--I'm quite sure I put it
there last night with the thimble and scissors."

Miss Peppy thrust her right hand deep into that mysterious receptacle of
household miscellanies her pocket, and fingered the contents inquiringly
for a few moments.

"What are you looking for?" inquired her brother impatiently.

"The key of the press," said Miss Peppy with a look of weariness and
disappointment.

"What key is that in your left hand?" said Mr Stuart.

"Why, I declare, that's _it_!" exclaimed his sister with a laugh; "there
_is_ no accounting for things. My whole life is a series of small
surprises and perplexities. I _wonder_ what I was born for! It seems
to me so ridiculous that so serious a thing as life should be taken up
with such little trifles."

"What's that you say about trifles, aunt?" asked Kenneth, who entered
the room at the moment, and saluted Miss Peppy on the cheek.

"Nothing, Kennie, nothing worth mentioning," (she seated herself at the
table and began to pour out the tea): "it seems that you have been
saving more lives last night."

"Well, yes, at least I saved _one_," said Kenneth, with a look of
mingled pride and pleasure; "stout John Furby, the coxswain of the new
lifeboat, was knocked overboard and nearly drowned. Bucephalus and I
chanced to