fumes, smoke, crash, clatter, and explosions, that your only son is
bound, as it were, to take special delight in chemical analysis and
combination, to say nothing of mechanical force and contrivance, in
order that a balance of some sort may be adjusted which would otherwise
be thrown out of order by your--pardon me--comparative ignorance of, and
indifference to such matters."

"Nay, Jeff," replied my mother, gently, with a look of reproof on her
kind face; "ignorance if you will, but not indifference. I cannot be
indifferent to anything that interests you."

"True; forgive me; I should have said `dislike.'"

"Yes, that would have been correct, Jeff, for I cannot pretend to like
the bursting, smoking, and ill-smelling things you are so fond of; but
you know I am interested in them. You cannot have forgotten how, when
you were a boy, I used to run at your call to witness your pyrotechnic,
hydraulic, mechanic, and chemic displays--you see how well I remember
the names--and how the--"

"The acids," I interrupted, taking up the theme, "ruined your carpets
and table-cloths, and the smoke stifled and blinded, while the noise and
flames terrified you; no, mother, I have not forgotten it, nor the
patient way you took the loss of your old silk dress, or--"

"Ah! yes," sighed the dear old lady, with quite a pitiful look, "if it
had been any other than my wedding dress, which--but--well, it's of no
use regretting now; and you know, Jeff, I would not have checked you for
worlds, because I knew you were being led in the right way, though, in
my folly, I sometimes wished that the way had been a little further
removed from smoke and smells. But, after all, you were very careful,
dear boy--wonderfully so, for your years, and your little accidents did
not give me much pain beyond the day of their occurrence. The poisoning
of the cat, to be sure, was sad, though unavoidable, and so was the
destruction by fire of the cook's hair; but the flooding of the house,
after the repairs you executed on the great cistern, and the blowing out
of the laundry window at the time the clothes-boiler was cracked, with
other trifles of that sort, were--"

The remainder of my mother's speech was cut short by a clattering of
hoofs.

Next moment my sister Bella came round the corner of the house at full
gallop, her fresh face beaming with the exercise, and her golden hair
streaming in the breeze.

She pulled up, leaped off her pony, and ran into