d_ you make it out for us, my dear?" pleaded the little old lady.

"You can do Arithmetic, I trust?" her aunt said, a little anxiously, as
Clara turned from one tablet to another, vainly trying to collect her
thoughts. Her mind was a blank, and all human expression was rapidly
fading out of her face.

A gloomy silence ensued.

KNOT VIII.

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

"This little pig went to market:
This little pig staid at home."

"By Her Radiancy's express command," said the Governor, as he conducted
the travellers, for the last time, from the Imperial presence, "I shall
now have the ecstasy of escorting you as far as the outer gate of the
Military Quarter, where the agony of parting--if indeed Nature can
survive the shock--must be endured! From that gate grurmstipths start
every quarter of an hour, both ways----"

"Would you mind repeating that word?" said Norman. "Grurm----?"

"Grurmstipths," the Governor repeated. "You call them omnibuses in
England. They run both ways, and you can travel by one of them all the
way down to the harbour."

The old man breathed a sigh of relief; four hours of courtly ceremony
had wearied him, and he had been in constant terror lest something
should call into use the ten thousand additional bamboos.

In another minute they were crossing a large quadrangle, paved with
marble, and tastefully decorated with a pigsty in each corner. Soldiers,
carrying pigs, were marching in all directions: and in the middle stood
a gigantic officer giving orders in a voice of thunder, which made
itself heard above all the uproar of the pigs.

"It is the Commander-in-Chief!" the Governor hurriedly whispered to his
companions, who at once followed his example in prostrating themselves
before the great man. The Commander gravely bowed in return. He was
covered with gold lace from head to foot: his face wore an expression of
deep misery: and he had a little black pig under each arm. Still the
gallant fellow did his best, in the midst of the orders he was every
moment issuing to his men, to bid a courteous farewell to the departing
guests.

"Farewell, oh old one--carry these three to the South corner--and
farewell to thee, thou young one--put this fat one on the top of the
others in the Western sty--may your shadows never be less--woe is me, it
is wrongly done! Empty out all the sties, and begin again!" And the
soldier leant upon his sword, and wiped away a tear.

"He is in distress," the G