not this just the time when my place should
be near you--and him?"

"Not near papa, Horace!" she put in anxiously; "it wouldn't be at all
safe."

"Do you really think I have any fear for myself?"

"Are you sure you quite know--what he is like now?"

"I understand," said Horace, trying to put it as considerately as
possible, "that a casual observer, who didn't know your father, might
mistake him, at first sight, for--for some sort of quadruped."

"He's a mule," sobbed Sylvia, breaking down entirely. "I could bear it
better if he had been a _nice_ mule.... B--but he isn't!"

"Whatever he may be," declared Horace, as he knelt by her chair
endeavouring to comfort her, "nothing can alter my profound respect for
him. And you must let me see him, Sylvia; because I fully believe I
shall be able to cheer him up."

"If you imagine you can persuade him to--to laugh it off!" said Sylvia,
tearfully.

"I wasn't proposing to try to make him see the humorous side of his
situation," Horace mildly explained. "I trust I have more tact than
that. But he may be glad to know that, at the worst, it is only a
temporary inconvenience. I'll take care that he's all right again before
very long."

She started up and looked at him, her eyes widened with dawning dread
and mistrust.

"If you can speak like that," she said, "it must have been _you_
who--no, I can't believe it--that would be too horrible!"

"I who did _what_, Sylvia? Weren't you there when--when it happened?"

"No," she replied. "I was only told of it afterwards. Mother heard papa
talking loudly in his study this morning, as if he was angry with
somebody, and at last she grew so uneasy she couldn't bear it any
longer, and went in to see what was the matter with him. Dad was quite
alone and looked as usual, only a little excited; and then, without the
slightest warning, just as she entered the room, he--he changed slowly
into a mule before her eyes! Anybody but mamma would have lost her head
and roused the whole house."

"Thank Heaven she didn't!" said Horace, fervently. "That was what I was
most afraid of."

"Then--oh, Horace, it _was_ you! It's no use denying it. I feel more
certain of it every moment!"

"Now, Sylvia!" he protested, still anxious, if possible, to keep the
worst from her, "what could have put such an idea as that into your
head?"

"I don't know," she said slowly. "Several things last night. No one who
was really nice, and like everybody else, wou