hought the man had never
possessed a head of live stock in his life. Instead, he was deeply
interested in the whole dolorous quest of the tea-things, and
sympathised with Harold on the disputed point in mathematics as if he
had been himself at the same stage of education. As they neared home,
Harold found himself, to his surprise, sitting up and chatting to his
new friend like man to man; and before he was set down at a convenient
gap in the garden hedge, he had promised that when Selina gave her first
public tea-party, little Miss Larkin should be invited to come and bring
her whole sawdust family along with her; and the farmer appeared as
pleased and proud as if he had won a gold medal at the Agricultural
Show, and really, when I heard the story, it began to dawn upon me that
those Olympians must have certain good points, far down in them, and
that I should have to leave off abusing them some day.

At the hour of five, Selina, having spent the afternoon searching for
Harold in all his accustomed haunts, sat down disconsolately to tea with
her dolls, who ungenerously refused to wait beyond the appointed hour.
The wooden tea-things seemed more chipped than usual; and the dolls
themselves had more of wax and sawdust, and less of human colour and
intelligence about them, than she ever remembered before. It was then
that Harold burst in, very dusty, his stockings at his heels, and the
channels ploughed by tears still showing on his grimy cheeks; and Selina
was at last permitted to know that he had been thinking of her ever
since his ill-judged exhibition of temper, and that his sulks had not
been the genuine article, nor had he gone frogging by himself. It was a
very happy hostess who dispensed hospitality that evening to a
glassy-eyed stiff-kneed circle; and many a dollish _gaucherie_, that
would have been severely checked on ordinary occasions, was as much
overlooked as if it had been a birthday.

But Harold and I, in what I was afterwards given to understand was our
stupid masculine way, thought all her happiness sprang from possession
of the long-coveted tea-service.

[Illustration]

'LUSISTI SATIS'

AMONG the many fatuous ideas that possessed the Olympian noddle, this
one was pre-eminent; that, being Olympians, they could talk quite freely
in our presence on subjects of the closest import to us, so long as
names, dates, and other landmarks were ignored. We were supposed to be
denied the faculty for putti