sentimental output! As things were, I could only hurry
homewards, my moral tail well between my legs, with an uneasy
feeling, as I glanced back over my shoulder, that there was more
in this chance than met the eye.

And outside our gate I found Charlotte, alone and crying.
Edward, it seemed, had persuaded her to hide, in the full
expectation of being duly found and ecstatically pounced upon;
then he had caught sight of the butcher's cart, and, forgetting
his obligations, had rushed off for a ride. Harold, it further
appeared, greatly coveting tadpoles, and top-heavy with the
eagerness of possession, had fallen into the pond. This, in
itself, was nothing; but on attempting to sneak in by the back-
door, he had rendered up his duckweed-bedabbled person into the
hands of an aunt, and had been promptly sent off to bed; and
this, on a holiday, was very much. The moral of the whipping-
post was working itself out; and I was not in the least surprised
when, on reaching home, I was seized upon and accused of doing
something I had never even thought of. And my frame of mind was
such, that I could only wish most heartily that I had done
it.



A WHITE-WASHED UNCLE

In our small lives that day was eventful when another uncle was
to come down from town, and submit his character and
qualifications (albeit unconsciously) to our careful criticism.
Previous uncles had been weighed in the balance, and--alas!--