y
chubby English children with a claim on his good nature that he was
particularly indulgent to his young cousins. However this may be, they
soon stood in no awe of him, and a chorus cried around him--

"Where's your new medal, Cousin? What's it about? What's on it?"

"Taku Forts," said Cousin Peregrine, smiling grimly.

"What's Tar--Koo?" inquired the young people.

"Taku is the name of a place in China, and you know I've just come from
China," said Cousin Peregrine.

On which six voices cried--

"Did you drink nothing but tea?"

"Did you buy lots of old China dragons?"

"Did you see any ladies with half their feet cut off?"

"Did you live in a house with bells hanging from the roof?"

"Are the Chinese like the people on Mamma's fan?"

"Did you wear a pigtail?"

Cousin Peregrine's hair was so very short that the last question raised
a roar of laughter, after which the chorus spoke with one voice--

"Do tell us all about China!"

At which he put on a serio-comic countenance, and answered with much
gravity--

"Oh, certainly, with all my heart. It will be rather a long story, but
never mind. By the way, I am afraid I can hardly begin much before the
birth of Confucius, but as that happened in or about the year 550
B.C., you will still have to hear about two thousand four
hundred years of its history or so, which will keep us going for a few
months".

"Confucius--whose real name was Kwang-Foo-Tsz (and if you can pronounce
that last word properly you can do more than many eminent Chinese
scholars can)--was born in the province of Kan Tang ----.

"Oh, not about Confuse-us!" pleaded a little maid on Cousin Peregrine's
knee. "Tell us what you did."

"But tell us _wonderful_ things," stipulated a young gentleman, fresh
from _The Boy Hunters_ and kindred works.

If young bachelors have a weak point when they are kind to children, it
is that they are apt to puzzle them with paradoxes. Even Cousin
Peregrine did "sometimes tease," so his cousins said.

On this occasion he began a long rambling speech, in which he pretended
not to know what things are and what are not _wonderful_. The _Boy
Hunters_ young gentleman fell headlong into the quagmire of definitions,
but the oldest sister, who had her own ideas about things, said firmly--

"Wonderful things are things which surprise you very much, and which you
never saw before, and which you don't understand. Like as if you saw a
lot of giants coming out of a h