sly.

"Books wifout pictures is silly!" said a certain Maid Margaret, a
companion new to the honourable company, who was weaving daisy-chains,
her legs crossed beneath her, Turk fashion. In literature she had got as
far as words of one syllable, and had a poor opinion even of them.

"_I_ had read all Scott's novels long before I was your age," I said
reprovingly.

The children received this announcement with the cautious silence with
which every rising generation listens to the experiences of its elders
when retailed by way of odious comparison.

"Um-m!" said Sir Toady, the licensed in speech; "_we_ know all that. Oh,
yes; and you didn't like fruit, and you liked medicine in a big spoon,
and eating porridge and--"

"Oh, we know--we know!" cried all the others in chorus. Whereupon I
informed them what would have happened to us thirty years ago if we had
ventured to address our parents in such fashion. But Sweetheart, with
the gravity of her age upon her, endeavoured to raise the discussion to
its proper level.

"Scott writes such a lot before you get at the story," she objected,
knitting her brows; "why couldn't he just have begun right away?"

"With Squire Trelawney and Dr. Livesey drawing at their pipes in the
oak-pannelled dining room, and Black Dog outside the door, and Pew
coming tapping along the road with his stick!" cried Hugh John, turning
off a sketchy synopsis of his favourite situations in fiction.

"Now that's what I call a proper book!" said Sir Toady, hastily rolling
himself out of the way of being kicked. (For with these unusual
children, the smooth ordinary upper surfaces of life covered a constant
succession of private wars and rumours of wars, which went on under the
table at meals, in the schoolroom, and even, it is whispered, in
church.)

As for blithe Maid Margaret, she said nothing, for she was engaged in
testing the capacities of a green slope of turf for turning somersaults
upon.

"In Sir Walter Scott's time," I resumed gravely, "novels were not
written for little girls--"

"Then why did you give us Miss Edgeworth to read?" said Sweetheart,
quickly. But I went on without noticing the interruption, "Now, if you
like, I will tell you some of Sir Walter's stories over again, and then
I will mark in your own little edition the chapters you can read for
yourselves."

The last clause quieted the joyous shout which the promise of a
story--any sort of a story--had called forth. An uncert