rd,--"doubtless God might have made a better berry than a
strawberry, but doubtless God never did."

The bill of fare rated their excellence at fifteen cents.

"Not unreasonable," I pantomimed.

"Not if I pay for them," replied Halicarnassus.

Then we sat and amused ourselves after the usual brilliant fashion of
people who are waiting in hotel parlors, railroad-stations, and
restaurants. We surveyed the gilding and the carpet and the mirrors
and the curtains. We hazarded profound conjectures touching the people
assembled. We studied the bill of fare as if it contained the secret
of our army's delay upon the Potomac, and had just concluded that the
first crop of strawberries was exhausted, and they were waiting for the
second crop to grow, when Hebe hove in sight with her nectared ambrosia
in a pair of cracked, browny-white saucers, with browny-green silver
spoons. I poured out what professed to be cream, but proved very
low-spirited milk, in which a few disheartened strawberries appeared
rari nantes. I looked at them in dismay. Then curiosity smote me, and
I counted them. Just fifteen.

"Cent a piece," said Halicarnassus.

I was not thinking of the cent, but I had promised myself a feast; and
what is a feast, susceptible of enumeration? Cleopatra was right.
"That love"--and the same is true of strawberries--"is beggarly which
can be reckoned." Infinity alone is glory.

"Perhaps the quality will atone for the quantity," said Halicarnassus,
scooping up at least half of his at one "arm-sweep."

"How do they taste?" I asked.

"Rather coppery," he answered.

"It is the spoons!" I exclaimed, in a fright. "They are German silver!
You will be poisoned!" and knocked his out of his hand with such
instinctive, sudden violence that it flew to the other side of the
room, where an old gentleman sat over his newspaper and dinner.

He started, dropped his newspaper, and looked around in a maze.
Halicarnassus behaved beautifully,--I will give him the credit of it.
He went on with my spoon and his strawberries as unconcernedly as if
nothing had happened. I was conscious that I blushed, but my face was
in the shade, and nobody else knew it; and to this day I've no doubt
the old gentleman would have marvelled what sent that mysterious spoon
rattling against his table and whizzing between his boots, had not
Halicarnassus, when the uproar was over, conceived it his duty to go
and pick up the spoon and apologize for the