with our conversation.

_Mother._--"I can never feel sufficiently grateful to you, Madame, for
your forethoughts and wisdom. We are now at all events our own
mistresses and masters, but no one knows what would have become of us,
had we gone open-armed to meet these people."

_Madame._--"They look capable of any wickedness, Madam, and I really
begin to think from all I can make out that they are pirates, and then
they would have had no scruples in carrying us all off, and selling us
for slaves."

_Schillie._--"Or worse, they might have turned us into wives, a thing I
could by no means consent to, even to be Queen of the Pirates."

_Serena_ (our best Spanish Scholar).--"I heard them talking a great deal
about the snake, and it seemed they were afraid to land at first for
fear of it, but wanted water very much. And it was only on discovering
its skin that they ceased to feel any alarm, and have wandered all about
since."

_Gatty._--"What owls we were to leave the skin there. However I think it
great fun to dodge them in this way."

_Madame._--"Fun did you say, my dear child? Poor deceived child."

_Gatty._--"Not deceived at all, Madame, and, besides, we all think it
fun."

_Sybil._--"Yes, Madame, I think it very amusing to feel so safe and
secure, and yet to be able to watch them so well."

_Serena._--"And you know, Madame, it gives us such advantage; we know
all about them, and they know nothing about us."

_Schillie._--"Also, Madame, we have now something to do, and June cannot
thrust any more of her inventions upon us for want of some other
amusement."

_Zoe._--"And you know, Madame, we cannot have any lessons while we are
so busy watching."

_Winny._--"Yes, Madame, and it is so nice to feel so useful, and have
you all running up to ask us, 'Well! what do we see now? What's going on
at present?'"

_Lilly._--"And to see them all running about here and there looking for
us, and all too in the wrong places."

_Oscar._--"And what fun it will be to shoot them."

_Felix._--"Yes! right and left shots."

_Jenny._--"Oh, Master Felix, how pleased I should be to see you do that."

_Hargrave._--"Nobody more so than hi, I make bold to say."

Madame turned from one to another in sad dismay, and then looked at me.

"Well! Madame, it is better they should all think thus than be as
wretched as we were yesterday," returned I. "So let us make the best of
it, hope the best, and ardently pray for it."

"I should l