at the unruffled beast, who never budged.

"O but rabbits DO talk," interposed Harold. "I've watched them often
in their hutch. They put their heads together and their noses go up and
down, just like Selina's and the Vicarage girls'. Only of course I can t
hear what they're saying."

"Well, if they do," said Edward, unwillingly, "I'll bet they don't talk
such rot as those girls do!"--which was ungenerous, as well as unfair;
for it had not yet transpired--nor has it to this day--WHAT Selina and
her friends talked about.

THE ARGONAUTS

The advent of strangers, of whatever sort, into our circle, had always
been a matter of grave dubiety and suspicion; indeed, it was generally
a signal for retreat into caves and fastnesses of the earth, into
unthreaded copses or remote outlying cowsheds, whence we were only to be
extricated by wily nursemaids, rendered familiar by experience with our
secret runs and refuges. It was not surprising therefore that the heroes
of classic legend, when first we made their acquaintance, failed to win
our entire sympathy at once. "Confidence," says somebody, "is a plant of
slow growth;" and these stately dark-haired demi-gods, with names
hard to master and strange accoutrements, had to win a citadel already
strongly garrisoned with a more familiar soldiery. Their chill foreign
goddesses had no such direct appeal for us as the mocking malicious
fairies and witches of the North; we missed the pleasant alliance of
the animal--the fox who spread the bushiest of tails to convey us to
the enchanted castle, the frog in the well, the raven who croaked advice
from the tree; and--to Harold especially--it seemed entirely wrong that
the hero should ever be other than the youngest brother of three. This
belief, indeed, in the special fortune that ever awaited the youngest
brother, as such,--the "Borough-English" of Faery,--had been of baleful
effect on Harold, producing a certain self-conceit and perkiness that
called for physical correction. But even in our admonishment we were on
his side; and as we distrustfully eyed these new arrivals, old Saturn
himself seemed something of a parvenu. Even strangers, however, we
may develop into sworn comrades; and these gay swordsmen, after all,
were of the right stuff. Perseus, with his cap of darkness and his
wonderful sandals, was not long in winging his way to our hearts; Apollo
knocked at Admetus' gate in something of the right fairy fashion; Psyche
brought