to be inquired for soon, if she has not been already. Come along,
Polly."

Perfectly at ease and peace, Polly came along, but, finding the stairs
rather stiff work, was carried up by Barbox Brothers. The dinner was a
most transcendant success, and the Barbox sheepishness, under Polly's
directions how to mince her meat for her, and how to diffuse gravy over
the plate with a liberal and equal hand, was another fine sight.

"And now," said Polly, "while we are at dinner, you be good, and tell me
that story I taught you."

With the tremors of a Civil Service examination upon him, and very
uncertain indeed, not only as to the epoch at which the pie appeared in
history, but also as to the measurements of that indispensable fact,
Barbox Brothers made a shaky beginning, but under encouragement did very
fairly. There was a want of breadth observable in his rendering of the
cheeks, as well as the appetite, of the boy; and there was a certain
tameness in his fairy, referable to an under-current of desire to account
for her. Still, as the first lumbering performance of a good-humoured
monster, it passed muster.

"I told you to be good," said Polly, "and you are good, ain't you?"

"I hope so," replied Barbox Brothers.

Such was his deference that Polly, elevated on a platform of sofa
cushions in a chair at his right hand, encouraged him with a pat or two
on the face from the greasy bowl of her spoon, and even with a gracious
kiss. In getting on her feet upon her chair, however, to give him this