ing with
wild beasts. They roam to and fro and are at their wits' ends----" here
Tommy, who is great on Bible history, but who occasionally gets mixed,
stops short. "Father says they're there," he winds up defiantly.

"Wild beasts!" echoes Mr. Dysart, bewildered. "Is _this_ the teaching
about their Saxon neighbors that the Irish children receive at the hands
of their parents and guardians. Oh, well, come now, Tommy, really, you
know----"

"Yes; they are there," says Tommy, rebelliously. "_Frightful_ beasts!
_Bears!_ They'd tear you in bits if they could get at you. They have no
reason in them, father says. And they climb up posts, and roar at
people."

"Oh, nonsense!" says Mr. Dysart. "One would think we were having a
French Revolution all over again in England. Don't you think," glancing
severely at Joyce, who is giving way to unrestrained mirth, "that it is
not only wrong, but dangerous, to implant such ideas about the English
in the breasts of Irish children? There isn't a word of truth in it,
Tommy."

"There _is_!" says Monkton, junior, wagging his head indignantly.
"Father _told_ me."

"Father told us," repeats the small Mabel, who has just come up.

"And father says, too, that the reason that they are so wicked is
because they want their freedom!" says Tommy, as though this is an
unanswerable argument.

"Oh, I see! The socialists!" says Mr. Dysart. "Yes; a troublesome pack!
But still, to call them wild beasts----"

"They _are_ wild beasts," says Tommy, prepared to defend his position to
the last. "They've got _manes_, and _horns_, and _tails_!"

"He's romancing," says Mr. Dysart looking at Joyce.

"He's not," says she demurely. "He is only trying to describe to you the
Zoological Gardens. His father gives him a graphic description of them
every evening, and--the result you see."

Here both she and he, after a glance at each other, burst out laughing.

"No wonder you were amused," says he, "but you might have given me a
hint. You were unkind to me--as usual."

"Now that you have been to London," says she, a little hurriedly, as if
to cover his last words and pretend she hasn't heard them, "you will
find our poor Ireland duller than ever. At Christmas it is not so bad,
but just _now_, and in the height of your season, too,----"

"Do you call this place dull?" interrupts he. "Then let me tell you you
misjudge your native land; this little bit of it, at all events. I think
it not only the loveliest,