taken me back. Mamma would have known it wasn't your fault."

"I am not so sure of that, and you have made poor Charlie cry,"--drawing
the younger boy to her side.

"Charlie is just a baby," contemptuously.

"He is a better boy than you are." Silence.

"Auntie, do you think the gentleman who pulled me back was the old
gentleman's son?"

"No, I do not think he was."

"Why don't you, auntie?"

"I can hardly say why."

"I have seen that gentleman--the old gentleman--in Kensington Gardens,"
said little Charlie, nestling up to his aunt. "He spoke to mammy the day
she took me to feed the ducks."

"I think that is only a fancy, dear."

"No; I am quite sure."

"Oh, you are always fancying things; you are a silly," cried Cecil, now
quite recovered, and turning to kneel upon the seat that he might look
out, thereby rubbing his feet on the very best "afternoon" dress of a
severely respectable female, whose rubicund face expressed "drat the