straightforward evidence. I had a little narrow block between my
fingers, and was glancing carefully among the unused pieces for its
mate, repeating abstractedly all the while:

"I, said the fly, With my little eye I saw him die."

"I, said the fly, with my little"--here the library was thrown open,
and my step-mother, accompanied by a strange gentleman, walked
laughingly into the room.

"Here are both my babies!" she exclaimed with a well feigned air of
proud maternity, as she came towards us. "Are they not good little
children?" she asked in grand condescension, looking up into the
stranger's face, then turning abruptly around she said in her formal
tone

"Amelia, this is Dr. Campbell."

I had sprung to my feet at sight of the intruders and stood distantly
in the shadow of the window curtains. I was conscious of looking
flushed and indignant, and did not relish the situation from any stand
point. The sing-song testimony of the fly was still ringing in my
ears, and I knew how very undignified and ridiculous it must have
sounded to an uninterested stranger coming in suddenly upon us in this
way.

Instead of going forward, therefore, with the careless simplicity
becoming my years, I merely inclined my head from where I stood, and
got perceptibly redder in the face. I must have looked up, since I
afterwards remembered the tall serious man standing like a dark shadow