burn 'em herself. When Egeria's swains talk about her, it is
always 'ut vidi,' how I saw, succeeded by 'ut perii,' how I sudden
lost my brains."

Egeria: "YOU don't indulge in burnt-offerings" (laughing, with
slightly heightened colour); "but how you do burn incense! You
speak as if the skeletons of my rejected suitors were hanging on
imaginary lines all over the earth's surface."

Tommy: "They are not hanging on 'imaginary' lines."

Mrs. Jack: "Turn your thoughts from Egeria's victims, you
frivolous people, and let me tell you that I've been 'up-along'
this morning and found--what do you think?--a library: a
circulating library maintained by the Clovelly Court people. It is
embowered in roses and jasmine, and there is a bird's nest hanging
just outside one of the open windows next to a shelf of Dickens and
Scott. Never before have young families of birds been born and
brought up with similar advantages. The snails were in the path
just as we saw them yesterday evening, Atlas; not one has moved,
not one has died! Oh, I certainly must come and live here. The
librarian is a dear old lady; if she ever dies, I am coming to take
her place. You will be postmistress at the Fairy Cross then,
Egeria, and we'll visit each other. And I've brought Dickens'
'Message from the Sea' for you, and Kingsley's 'Westward Ho!' for
Tommy, and 'The Wages of Sin' for Atlas, and 'Hypatia' for Egeria,
'Lorna Doone' for Jack, and Charles Kingsley's sermons for myself.
We will read aloud every evening."

"I won't," said Tommy succinctly. "I've been down by the quay