e, bewildered Mr. Gallilee had finished his bread and
butter. "Ovid knows best, my dear," he said cheerfully to his wife. Mrs.
Gallilee's sudden recovery of her temper did not include her husband.
If a look could have annihilated that worthy man, his corporal presence
must have vanished into air, when he had delivered himself of his
opinion. As it was, he only helped Zo to another spoonful of jam. "When
Ovid first thought of that voyage," he went on, "I said, Suppose he's
sick? A dreadful sensation isn't it, Miss Minerva? First you seem to
sink into your shoes, and then it all comes up--eh? You're _not_ sick
at sea? I congratulate you! I most sincerely congratulate you! My dear
Ovid, come and dine with me to-night at the club." He looked doubtfully
at his wife, as he made that proposal. "Got the headache, my dear? I'll
take you out with pleasure for a walk. What's the matter with her, Miss
Minerva? Oh, I see! Hush! Maria's going to say grace.--Amen! Amen!"

They all rose from the table.

Mr. Gallilee was the first to open the door. The smoking-room at
Fairfield Gardens was over the kitchen; he preferred enjoying his cigar
in the garden of the Square. He looked at Carmina and Ovid, as if he
wanted one of them to accompany him. They were both at the aviary,
admiring the birds, and absorbed in their own talk. Mr. Gallilee
resigned himself to his fate; appealing, on his way out, to somebody to
agree with him as usual. "Well!" he said with a little sigh, "a cigar
keeps one company." Miss Minerva (absorbed in her own thoughts) passed
near him, on her way to the school-room with her pupils. "You would find
it so yourself, Miss Minerva--that is to say, if you smoked, which of
course you don't. Be a good girl, Zo; attend to your lessons."

Zo's perversity in the matter of lessons put its own crooked
construction on this excellent advice. She answered in a whisper, "Give
us a holiday."

The passing aspirations of idle minds, being subject to the law of
chances, are sometimes fulfilled, and so exhibit poor human wishes in a
consolatory light. Thanks to the conversation between Carmina and Ovid,
Zo got her holiday after all.

Mrs. Gallilee, still as amiable as ever, had joined her son and her
niece at the aviary. Ovid said to his mother, "Carmina is fond of birds.
I have been telling her she may see all the races of birds assembled in
the Zoological Gardens. It's a perfect day. Why shouldn't we go!"

The stupidest woman liv