try my little possible."

"All I ask of you is," says Bobby, gravely, "not to take a fellow who
has not got any shooting."

"I will make it a _sine qua non_," I answer, seriously.

A louder screech than ever from the geese, accompanied with
wing-flappings. How unanimous they are! There is not a voice wanting.

"I wonder how long Sir Roger will stay?" I say presently.

"What connection of ideas made you think of him?" asks Bobby, curiously.
"Do you suppose that he has any shooting?"

I break into a laugh.

"I do not know, I am sure. I do not think it matters much whether he has
or not."

"I dare say that there are a good many women--old ones, you know--who
would take him, old as he is," says Bobby, with liberality.

"I dare say," I answer. "I do not know. I am not old, but I am not sure
that I would not rather marry him than be an old maid."

A pause. Again I laugh--this time a laugh of recollection.

"What a fool you did look last night!" I say with sisterly candor, "when
you put your head round the school-room door, and found that you had
been witty about him to his face!"

Bobby reddens, and aims a bit of mortar at a round-eyed robin that has
perched near us.

"At all events, I did not call him a _beast_."

"Well, never mind; do not get angry! What did it matter?" say I,
comfortingly. "You did not mention his name. How could he tell that he
was our benefactor? He did not even know that he was to be; and I begin
to have misgivings about it myself."

"I cannot say that I see much sign of his putting his hand into his
breeches-pocket," says Bobby, vulgarly.

There is the click of a lifted latch. We both look in the direction
whence comes the sound. He of whom we speak is entering the garden by a
distant door.

"Get down, Bobby!" cry I, hurriedly, "and help me down. Make haste!
quick! I would not have him find me perched up here for _worlds_."

Bobby gets down as nimbly as a monkey. I prepare to do likewise.

"Hold it steady!" I cry nervously, and, so saying, begin to turn round
and to stretch out one leg, with the intention of making a graceful
descent backward.

"Stop!" cries Bobby from the bottom, with a diabolical chuckle. "I think
you observed just now that I looked a fool last night! perhaps you will
not mind trying how it feels!"

So saying, he seizes the ladder--a light and short one--and makes off
with it. I cry, "Bobby! Bobby!" suppressedly, several times, but I need
hardly say that my