THE TWO SUCKING-PIGS.

Fifteen minutes had passed, and the old house-keeper's face still glowed
--no longer from anger, but because, full of zeal, she now moulded cakes
before the bright flames on the hearth, now basted the roast on the spit
with its own juices.

Beside her stood old Jason, who could not give up his young master's
cause for lost, and exposed himself once more to the arrows of Semestre's
angry words, because he bitterly repented having irritated instead of
winning her.

Unfortunately, his soothing speeches fell on hard ground, for Semestre
scarcely vouchsafed a reply, and at last distinctly intimated that he
interrupted her.

"Attention," she said, "is the mother of every true success. It is even
more needful in cooking than in weaving; and if Leonax, for whom my hands
are busy, resembles his father, he knows how to distinguish bad from
good."

"Alciphron," replied Jason, "liked the figs on our arbor by the house
better than yours."

"And while he was enjoying them," cried the old woman, "you beat him with
a hazel rod. I can hear him cry now, poor little dear."

"Too many figs are bad for the stomach," replied the old man, very slowly
and distinctly, but not too loud, that he might not remind her of her