ch had tremendous
success, and of which the rhymes were dubious but the sentiments
unimpeachable. Meanwhile, Queen Mab and the Owl, who had followed
un-perceived, perched upon the tower of the church, and surveyed the
landscape and the Bishop, who, a venerable appropriate figure in his
vestments, had turned naturally to the east, and was standing by a
marble cross.

'What a pleasant place!' said Mab. 'The dead must rest quietly here.'

'I am not sure that they don't keep up class distinctions,' said the Owl
rather misanthropically. 'They would if they could. But, on the whole,
I prefer to think that this place is the goal of the Democrat, where
Equality reigns indeed. If so, it will be consoling to him, for I am
afraid he will never get equality in life. Death, at present, has the
monopoly. Mr. Mallock thinks that Social Equality, if it ever came to
pass, would be ruinous to the welfare of the nation; but happily we are
in no immediate danger of it. Inequality, he says, is the condition of
Progress, and if it is only Inequality that is wanted, Progress ought
to be making rapid strides. Oh yes, we have Social Inequality enough
to carry us on at the rate of a mile a minute. It would be interesting,
would it not, to know in what direction we are progressing--though, of
course, the Progress is the chief thing--from good to better or from bad
to worse?'

'Very interesting,' said Queen Mab. 'I mean to think that we are
progressing from good to better. But do you know that you are a very
dismal bird? Are things really as bad as you say they are?'

'Perhaps I _am_ cynical,' replied the Owl. 'The kingfisher says so. The
kingfisher is an optimist, and he told me I thought it was clever to be
cynical; but that was when we had a few words one day. It is from living
in a belfry, doubtless, that I have contracted a habit of looking at
things on the dark side; but when one has made allowance for the belfry,
the world is not so bad after all. Of course animals can't be expected
to know what it means; they are not social philosophers, and men say so
many different things. Some think the universe is under a dual control,
and some that it is altogether a blunder--a clock running down and
the key lost I don't know about that, I am only a bird; but if it is a
failure, it is a glorious failure. Sometimes, indeed, the theologians
call life a howling wilderness; but that is in comparison with the next
world. For they are immortal.'

'I a