ain--what a barbarism clothes are! I do hate them so,
don't you? But I suppose there's no help for it.

"Rise, Lubin, rise, and twitch thy mantle blue;
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

"Oh, do help me to screw on my leg. That's it. I say, it's a
quarter-past one! We must hurry up, or Aunt Charlotte will be cursing.
What _does_ it matter if one eats at half-past one or at a quarter to
two? I really am very fond of Aunt Charlotte, you know, though I find
it awfully difficult to educate her. I sometimes despair of ever being
able to bring her up properly at all, she is so hopelessly Early
Victorian, poor thing. But, then, so many people are, aren't they? Now
animals are never Early Victorian; that's why I respect them so. If
you weren't a human being, Lubin--and a very nice one, as you
are--what sort of an animal would you like to be?"

"Well, I don't rightly know as I ever considered the point," said
Lubin, passing his fingers through his drenched curls. "Perhaps I'd as
lief be a squirrel as anything. I'm awfully fond o' nuts, and when I
was a kid I used to spend half my time a-climbing trees. A squirrel
must have rather a jolly life of it, when one comes to think."

"What a splendid idea!" cried Austin, as they prepared to start. "You
_are_ clever, Lubin. It would be lovely to live in a tree, curtained
all round with thousands of quivering green leaves. I wish I knew what
animals think about all day. It must be very dull for them never to
have any thoughts, poor dears, and yet they seem happy enough
somehow. Perhaps they have something else instead to make up for
it--something that we've no idea of. I _say_--it's half-past one!"

So Austin was late for lunch after all, and got a scolding from Aunt
Charlotte, who told him that it was exceedingly ill-bred to
inconvenience other people by habitual unpunctuality. Austin was very
penitent, and promised he'd never be unpunctual again if he lived to
be a hundred. Then Aunt Charlotte was mollified, and regaled him with
an improving account of a most excellent book she had just been
reading, upon the importance of instilling sound principles of
political economy into the mind of the agricultural labourer. It was
so essential, she explained, that people in that position should
understand something about the laws which govern prices, the relations
of capital and labour, the _metayer_ system, and the ratio which
should exist between an increase o