inging himself languidly into a chair and stretching out his little
legs with the air of a rather used-up, though by no means discontented,
man, "Susan, this is a coorious world--wery coorious--the most coorious
I may say that I ever come across."

"I won't speak a word to you, Gillie," said Susan, firmly, "unless you
throw that cigar out of the window."

"Ah, Susan, you would not rob me of my mornin' weed, would you?"
remonstrated Gillie, puffing a long cloud of smoke from his lips as he
took from between them the end of a cigar that had been thrown away by
some one the night before.

"Yes, I would, child, you are too young to smoke."

"Child!" repeated Gillie, in a tone of reproach, "too young! Why,
Susan, there's only two years between you an' me--that ain't much, you
know, at _our_ time of life."

"Well, what then? _I_ don't smoke," said Susan.

"True," returned Gillie, with an approving nod, "and, to say truth, I'm
pleased to find that you don't. It's a nasty habit in women."

"It's an equally nasty habit in boys. Now, do as I bid you directly."

"When a man is told by the girl he loves to do anythink, he is bound to
do it--even if it wor the sheddin' of his blood. Susan, your word is
law."

He turned and tossed the cigar-end out of the window. Susan laughingly
stooped, kissed the urchin's forehead, and called him a good boy.

"Now," said she, "what do you mean by sayin' that this is a curious
world? Do you refer to this part of it, or to the whole of it?"

"Well, for the matter of that," replied Gillie, crossing his legs, and
folding his hands over his knee, as he looked gravely up in Susan's
pretty face, "I means the whole of it, _this_ part included, and the
people in it likewise. Don't suppose that I go for to exclude myself.
We're all coorious, every one on us."

"What! me too?"

"You? w'y, you are the cooriousest of us all, Susan, seeing that you're
only a lady's-maid when you're pretty enough to have been a lady--a
dutchess, in fact, or somethin' o' that sort."

"You are an impudent little thing," retorted Susan, with a laugh; "but
tell me, what do you find so curious about the people up-stairs?"

"Why, for one thing, they seem all to have falled in love."

"That's not very curious is it?" said Susan, quietly; "it's common
enough, anyhow."

"Ah, some kinds of it, yes," returned Gillie, with the air of a
philosopher, "but at Chamouni the disease appears to have become
viroolent an