"

"Yes--oo--oo--oo--ahoo--ahoo."

"Then stop it."

"Wants to shee--"

"Toddie, I've got some candy in my trunk, but I won't give you a bit if
you don't stop that infernal noise."

"Well, I wants to shee wheels go wound. Ah--ah--h--h--h--h!"

"Toddie, dear, don't cry so. Here's some ladies coming in a carriage;
you wouldn't let THEM see you crying, would you? You shall see the
wheels go round as soon as we get home."

A carriage containing a couple of ladies was rapidly approaching, as
Toddie again raised his voice.

"Ah--h--h--wants to shee wheels--"

Madly I snatched my watch from my pocket, opened the case, and exposed
the works to view. The other carriage was meeting ours, and I dropped
my head to avoid meeting the glance of the unknown occupants, for my
few moments of contact with my dreadful nephews had made me feel
inexpressibly unneat. Suddenly the carriage with the ladies stopped. I
heard my own name spoken, and raising my head quickly (encountering
Budge's bullet head EN ROUTE to the serious disarrangement of my hat),
I looked into the other carriage. There, erect, fresh, neat, composed,
bright-eyed, fair-faced, smiling and observant,--she would have been
all this, even if the angel of the resurrection had just sounded his
dreadful trump,--sat Miss Alice Mayton, a lady who, for about a year, I
had been adoring from afar.

"When did YOU arrive, Mr. Burton?" she asked, "and how long have you
been officiating as child's companion? You're certainly a happy-looking
trio--so unconventional. I hate to see children all dressed up and
stiff as little manikins, when they go out to ride. And you look as if
you had been having SUCH a good time with them."

"I--I assure you, Miss Mayton," said I, "that my experience has been
the exact reverse of a pleasant one. If King Herod were yet alive I'd
volunteer as an executioner, and engage to deliver two interesting
corpses at a moment's notice."

"You dreadful wretch!" exclaimed the lady. "Mother, let me make you
acquainted with Mr. Burton,--Helen Lawrence's brother. How is your
sister, Mr. Burton?"

"I don't know," I replied; "she has gone with her husband on a
fortnight's visit to Captain and Mrs. Wayne, and I've been silly enough
to promise to have an eye to the place while they're away."

"Why, how delightful!" exclaimed Miss Mayton. "SUCH horses! SUCH
flowers! SUCH a cook!"

"And such children," said I, glaring suggestively at the imps, and
rescuing fro