that hot hungry day, and still better were the strawberries that
succeeded them; and oh! what mirth went on all the time! Kate was
chattering fastest of all, and loudest--not to say the most
nonsensically. It was not nice nonsense--that was the worst of it--
it was pert and saucy. It was rather the family habit to laugh at
Mary de la Poer for ways that were thought a little fanciful; and
Kate caught this up, and bantered without discretion, in a way not
becoming towards anybody, especially one some years her elder. Mary
was good-humoured, but evidently did not like being asked if she had
stayed in the mediaeval court, because she was afraid the great bulls
of Nineveh would run at her with their five legs.

"She will be afraid of being teazed by a little goose another time,"
said Lord de la Poer, intending to give his little friend a hint that
she was making herself very silly; but Kate took it quite another
way, and not a pretty one, for she answered, "Dear me, Mary, can't
you say bo to a goose!"

"Say what?" cried Adelaide, who was always apt to be a good deal
excited by Kate; and who had been going off into fits of laughter at
all these foolish sallies.

"It is not a very nice thing to say," answered her mother gravely;
"so there is no occasion to learn it."

Kate did take the hint this time, and coloured up to the ears, partly
with vexation, partly with shame. She sat silent and confused for
several minutes, till her friends took pity on her, and a few good-
natured words about her choice of an ice quite restored her
liveliness. It is well to be good-humoured; but it is unlucky, nay,