indeed! I _wouldn't_. I'd simply lie down and expire."

"I feel I've never till now sympathized enough with the animals in the
ark," said Miss Child, who had not chosen her own name, or else had
shown little taste in selection, compared with the others. But she
was somehow different, rather subtly different, from them in all ways;
not so elaborately refined, not so abnormally tall, not so startlingly
picturesque. "One always thinks of the ark animals in a procession,
poor dears--showing off their fur or their stripes or their spots or
something--just like us."

"Speak for yourself, if you talk about spots, please," said Miss
Devereux, who never addressed Miss Child as "dear," nor did the
others.

"I was thinking of leopards," explained the fifth dryad. "They're
among the few things you _can_ think of without being sick."

"I can't," said Miss Devereux, and was. They all were, and somehow
Miss Child seemed to be the one to blame.

"We were just getting better!" wailed Miss Vedrine.

"It was only a momentary excitement that cheered us," suggested
Winifred Child.

"What excitement?" they all wanted indignantly to know.

"That man looking in."