MY MOTHER (mechanically, and in order to show Austin that she paid him
the compliment of attending to his remarks).--"Who split off, my dear?"

"Bless me, Kitty," said my father, in great admiration, "you ask just the
question which it is most difficult to answer. An ingenious speculator
on races contends that the Danes, whose descendants make the chief part
of our northern population (and indeed, if his hypothesis could be
correct, we must suppose all the ancient worshippers of Odin), are of the
same origin as the Etrurians. And why, Kitty,--I just ask you, why?"

My mother shook her head thoughtfully, and turned the frock to the other
side of the light.

"Because, forsooth," cried my father, exploding,--"because the Etrurians
called their gods the 'AEsar,' and the Scandinavians called theirs the
'AEsir,' or 'Aser'! And where do you think this adventurous scholar puts
their cradle?"

"Cradle!" said my mother, dreamily, "it must be in the nursery."

MR. CAXTON.--"Exactly,--in the nursery of the human race, just here," and
my father pointed to the globe; "bounded, you see, by the river Halys,
and in that region which, taking its name from Ees, or As (a word
designating light or fire), has been immemorially called Asia. Now,
Kitty, from Ees, or As, our ethnological speculator would derive not only
Asia, the land, but AEsar, or Aser, its primitive inhabitants. Hence he
supposes the origin of the Etrurians and the Scandinavians. But if we
give him so much, we must give him more, and deduce from the same origin
the Es of the Celt and the Ized of the Persian, and--what will be of more