rom Jacky! He has
succumbed to heat and Mr. Grainger, and is now travelling in lands where
we poor waking mortals cannot enter. Apparently he is happy, but he
certainly is not as pretty as he need be, with his short and somewhat
aggressive nose uplifted, and his mouth at its widest stretch.

Everyone in the pew gives a decided jump--be the same small or
great--but Pussy alone finds herself equal to the occasion. She is a
child of extreme promise, and, seeing her opportunity, at once embraces
it. She seizes Jacky mildly, but firmly, by the hair, and administers to
him three severe shocks.

The result is everything she can possibly have desired. Jacky,
awakening, comes to his senses with the aid of a partially suppressed
yell, and falling upon Pussy with an evident desire to exterminate her
there and then, rolls with her off the seat, and disappears with her
heavily under it.

An awful moment, fraught with agony for the survivors ensue: and then
the belligerents are once more brought to light by Fabian; who, after
much search and expostulation, restores them to their proper places.
Being nearest to them, he plants them again upon their cushions with
only this precaution--that he himself now sits between them. This is
hardly to their liking, and from their several positions, and right
across poor Fabian's chest, they breathe fire and war, and death and
destruction upon each other.

How it will all end everyone refuses to dwell upon; but, just at the
most critical moment, Fabian, stooping his dark, grave face, whispers
something to the irate little damsel that, as if by magic, reduces her
to order.

She looks at him a little while, then sighs, and finally, slipping her
hand through his arm, lays her blonde head against him, and is the
personification of all things peaceful, until the service ends.

She looks up at him, too, as though desirous of his forgiveness, and
Fabian, taking her slim little baby hand in his, assures her with a
glance that she _is_ forgiven; and then she smiles at him, and nestles a
degree closer, and then Fabian, though always unsmilingly, passes his
arm round the child, and draws her into a more comfortable position.

Portia, who has watched it all, feels a strange pang at her heart; it is
as though he is glad to be friends with these children, to be at peace
with them, because they, at least (sweet, trusting souls), believe in
him. And what a tenderness he betrays towards them! this dark, mo