r again let me feel that in
inviting your company I have turned my pleasure into your pain."

"No, indeed," she urged, once more in earnest. "Girls so seldom pass
the gate, and men never walk where a carriage will go, or I should not
have been so stupid. But if I had blistered my feet, and the leveloo
had been a nut-vine, the fruit was worth the scratches."

"What do you know, my child, either of blisters or stripes?"

"You will teach me----No, you know I don't mean that! But you will
take me with you sometimes till I learn better! If you are going to
leave me at home in future "----

"My child, can you not trust me to take you for my own pleasure?"

The silvery tone of her low sweet laugh was truly perfectly musical.

"Forgive me," she said, nestling in the cushions at my knee, and
seeking with upturned eyes, like a child better assured of pardon than
of full reconciliation, to read my face, "it is very naughty to laugh,
and very ungrateful, when you speak to please me; but is it real
kindness to say what I should be very silly to believe?"

"You will believe whatever I tell you, child. If you wish to anger a
man, even with you, tell him that he is lying."

"I do nothing but misbehave," she said, in earnest despondency.
"I----" But I sealed her lips effectually for the moment.

"Why did you not speak as we came home?"

"You were tired, and I was thinking over all I had seen. Besides, who
talks air?" [makes conversation].

"You always talk when you are pleased. The lip-sting (scolding) and
silence frightened me so, you nearly heard me crying."

"Crying for fear? You did well to break the leveloo!... And so you
think I must be tired of my bride, before the colours have gone round
on the dial?"

"Not tired of her. You will like a little longer to find her in the
cushions when you are vexed or idle; but you don't want her where her
ignorance wearies and her weakness hampers you."

"Are you an _esve_, to be caged at home, and played with for lack of
better employment? We shall never understand each other, child."

"What more can I be? But don't say we shall never understand each
other," she pleaded earnestly. "It took time and trouble to make my
pet understand and obey each word and sign. Zevle gave hers more slaps
and fewer sweets, and it learned sooner. But, like me, you want your
esve to be happy, not only to fly straight and play prettily. She will
try hard to learn if you will teach her, and not be so