es upon your face. Are you seven?"

"Yes, we are seven," said the girl sadly, and added, "I
know what you want. You are going to question me about
my afflicted family. You are Mr. Wordsworth, and you are
collecting mortuary statistics for the Cottagers' Edition
of the Penny Encyclopaedia."

"You are eight years old?" asked the bard.

"I suppose so," answered she. "I have been eight years
old for years and years."

"And you know nothing of death, of course?" said the poet
cheerfully.

"How can I?" answered the child.

"Now then," resumed the venerable William, "let us get
to business. Name your brothers and sisters."

"Let me see," began the child wearily; "there was Rube
and Ike, two I can't think of, and John and Jane."

"You must not count John and Jane," interrupted the bard
reprovingly; "they're dead, you know, so that doesn't
make seven."

"I wasn't counting them, but perhaps I added up wrongly,"
said the child; "and will you please move your overshoe
off my neck?"

"Pardon," said the old man. "A nervous trick, I have been
absorbed; indeed, the exigency of the metre almost demands
my doubling up my feet. To continue, however; which died
first?"

"The first to go was little Jane," said the child.

"She lay moaning in bed, I presume?"

"In bed she moaning lay."

"What killed her?"

"Insomnia," answered the girl. "The gaiety of our cottage
life, previous to the departure of our elder brothers
for Conway, and the constant field-sports in which she
indulged with John, proved too much for a frame never
too robust."

"You express yourself well," said the poet. "Now, in
regard to your unfortunate brother, what was the effect
upon him in the following winter of the ground being
white with snow and your being able to run and slide?"

"My brother John was forced to go," answered she. "We
have been at a loss to understand the cause of his death.
We fear that the dazzling glare of the newly fallen snow,
acting upon a restless brain, may have led him to a fatal
attempt to emulate my own feats upon the ice. And, oh,
sir," the child went on, "speak gently of poor Jane. You
may rub it into John all you like; we always let him
slide."

"Very well," said the bard, "and allow me, in conclusion,
one rather delicate question: Do you ever take your little
porringer?"

"Oh, yes," answered the child frankly--

"'Quite often after sunset,
When all is light and fair,
I take my little porringer'--