ve been boiled in coffee.

The doctor kept the basket he had brought in beside him on the cloth,
and had to get up four times over to throw great fat wood-lice out of
the window, after scooping them up with a silver tablespoon, the dark
grey creatures having escaped from between the interstices of the
basket, and being busily making their way in search of some dry, dark
corner.

"It is astonishing what a predilection for peaches the wood-louse has,"
said the doctor, resuming his seat.

"All your fault, uncle," said Vane, with his mouth full.

"Mine! why?"

"You see you catch them stealing, and then you forgive them and let them
go to find their way back to the south wall, so that they can begin
again."

"Humph! yes," said the doctor; "they have plenty of enemies to shorten
their lives without my help. Well, so you found some mushrooms, did
you?"

"Yes, uncle, just in perfection."

"Some more tea, dear?" said Vane's aunt. "I hope you didn't bring many
to worry cook with."

"Only a basket full, aunty," said Vane merrily.

"What!" cried the lady, holding the teapot in air.

"But she is going to cook them for dinner."

"Really, my dear, I must protest," said the lady. "Vane cannot know
enough about such things to be trusted to bring them home and eat them.
I declare I was in fear and trembling over that last dish."

"You married a doctor, my dear," said Vane's uncle quietly; "and you saw
me partake of the dish without fear. Someone must experimentalise,
somebody had to eat the first potato, and the first bunch of grapes.
Nature never labelled them wholesome food."

"Then let somebody else try them first," said the lady. "I do not feel
disposed to be made ill to try whether this or that is good for food. I
am not ambitious."

"Then you must forgive us: we are," said the doctor dipping into his
basket. "Come, you will not refuse to experimentalise on a peach, my
dear. There is one just fully ripe, and--dear me! There are two
wood-lice in this one. Eaten their way right in and living there."

He laid one lovely looking peach on a plate, and made another dip.

"That must have fallen quite early in the night," said Vane, sharply,
"slugs have been all over it."

"So they have," said the doctor, readjusting his spectacles. "Here is a
splendid one. No: a blackbird has been digging his beak into that. And
into this one too. Really, my dear, I'm afraid that my garden friends
and foes have been ta