"Fast by the threshold of a door nailed fast
Three kittens sat, each kitten looked aghast."


And just as she had with great excitement--


"Taught him never to come there no more,"


Armine broke in with "Nine times one are nine."

It was an institution dating from the days when Janet made her first
acquaintance with the "Little Busy Bee," that there should be
something, of some sort, said or shown to papa, whenever he was at
home or free between dinner and bed-time, and it was considered
something between a disgrace and a misfortune to produce nothing.

So when the two little ones had been kissed and sent off to bed, with
mamma going with them to hear their prayers, Jock, on being called
for, repeated a Greek declension with two mistakes in it, Bobus
showed a long sum in decimals, Janet, brought a neat parallelism of
the present tense of the verb "to be" in five languages-—Greek,
Latin, French, German, and English.

"And Allen-—reposing on your honours? Eh, my boy?"

Allen looked rather foolish, and said, "I spoilt it, papa, and hadn't
time to begin another."