ll stomach," said Budge, with some contempt. "Say, Aunt Alice, I
hope you won't forget to have some fruit-cake. That's the kind _we_ like
best."

"You'll come home very early, Harry?" asked Mrs. Burton, ignoring her
nephew's question.

"By noon, at furthest," said the gentleman. "I only want to see my
morning letters, and fill any orders that may be in them."

"What are you coming so early for, Uncle Harry?" asked Budge.

"To take Aunt Alice riding, old boy," said Mr. Burton.

"Oh! just listen, Tod! Won't that be jolly? Uncle Harry's going to take
us riding!"

"I said I was going to take your Aunt Alice, Budge," said Mr. Burton.

"I heard you," said Budge, "but that won't trouble us any. She always
likes to talk to you better than she does to us. When are we going?"

Mr. Burton asked his wife, in German, whether the Lawrence-Burton
assurance was not charmingly natural, and Mrs. Burton answered in the
same tongue that it was, but was none the less deserving of rebuke, and
that she felt it to be her duty to tone it down in her nephews. Mr.
Burton wished her joy of the attempt, and asked a number of searching
questions about success already attained, until Mrs. Burton was glad to
see Toddie come out of a brown study and hear him say:

"I fink that placesh where the river is bwoke off izh the nicest
placesh."

"What _does_ the child mean?" asked his aunt.

"Don't you know where we went last year, an' you stopped us from seein'
how far we could hang over, Uncle Harry?" said Budge.

"Oh--Passaic Falls!" exclaimed Mr. Burton.

"Yes, that's it," said Budge.

"Old riverzh bwoke wight in two there," said Toddie, "an' a piece of
it's way up in the air, an' anuvver piece izh way down in big hole in
the shtones. _That'sh_ where I want to go widin'."

"Listen, Toddy," said Mrs. Burton. "We like to take you riding with us
at most times, but _to-day_ we prefer to go alone. You and Budge will
stay at home--we shan't be gone more than two hours."

"Wantsh to go a-widin'!" exclaimed Toddie.

"I know you do, dear, but you must wait until some other day," said the
lady.

"But I _wantsh_ to go," Toddie explained.

"And I don't want you to, so you can't," said Mrs. Burton, in a tone
which would reduce any reasonable person to hopelessness. But Toddie, in
spite of manifest astonishment, remarked:

"Wantsh to go a-widin'."

"_Now_ the fight is on," murmured Mr. Burton to himself. Then he arose
hastily from the table,