edth woman;
moreover, there be times when love, unreasoning and illogical, is
infinitely more beautiful than this much-vaunted common sense.

This and much more was in my mind as I sat fumbling with my useless
pipe and staring with unseeing eyes at the flow of the river. My
thoughts, however, were presently interrupted by something soft rubbing
against me, and looking down, I beheld Dorothy's fluffy kitten Louise.
Upon my attempting to pick her up, she bounded from me in that
remarkable sideways fashion peculiar to her kind, and stood regarding
me from a distance, her tail straight up in the air and her mouth
opening and shutting without a sound. At length having given vent to
a very feeble attempt at a mew, she zig-zagged to me, and climbing upon
my knee, immediately fell into a purring slumber.

"Hallo, Uncle Dick!--I mean, what ho, Little John!" cried a voice, and
looking over my shoulder, carefully so as nor to disturb the balance of
"Louise," I beheld the Imp. It needed but a glance at the bow in his
hand, the three arrows in his belt, and the feather in his cap to tell
me who he was for the time being.

"How now, Robin?" I inquired.

"I'm a bitter, disappointed man, Uncle Dick!" he answered, putting up a
hand to feel if his feather was in place.

"Are you?"

"Yes the book says that Robin Hood was 'bitter an' disappointed' an' so
am I."

"Why, how's that?"

The Imp folded his arms and regarded me with a terrific frown. "It's
all the fault of my Auntie Lisbeth'!" he said in a tragic voice.

"Sit down, my Imp, and tell me all about it."

"Well," he began laying aside his 'trusty sword,' and seating himself
at my elbow, "she got awfull' angry with me yesterday, awfull' angry,
indeed, an' she wouldn't play with me or anything; an' when I tried to
be friends with her an' asked her to pretend she was a hippopotamus,
'cause I was a mighty hunter, you know, she just said, 'Reginald, go
away an' don't bother me!'

"You surprise me, Imp!"

"But that's not the worst of it," he continued, shaking his head
gloomily; "she didn't come to 'tuck me up' an' kiss me good-night like
she always does. I lay awake hours an' hours waiting for her, you
know; but she never came, an' so I've left her!"

"Left her!" I repeated.

"For ever an' ever!" he said, nodding a stern brow. "I 'specks she'll
be awfull' sorry some day!"

"But where shall you go to?"

"I'm thinking of Persia!" he said darkly.

"Oh!"

"It's