gone to sleep if you had not come in. I think
it must be the tea; that and the fire
combined. How are you going to amuse Mr.
Stevens while I'm dressing for dinner?"

"I shall show him things," said Conny,
promptly. And Madeleine left me to amusement.

"Now for the story," I said, drawing Conny,
two puzzles, and a toy pump, up to a place on
my knee, and stroking her curls. "What's it to
be about? I can tell you a story about
anything you like," I declared rashly; and Conny
instantly put me to open shame.

"Then tell me," she said, holding on by her
pump, and settling herself into a position of
perfect ease, with a delighted consciousness that
it would be beyond my powers: "tell me the
story Madeleine tells me the nights you don't
come here."

I was completely taken aback. Some story
of Madeleine's? Madeleine, whose brilliant
imagination could keep Conny quiet for an hour
together?

"You would never guess, I see," said Conny,
"what it is, and if you don't guess, you can't,
of course, tell it. Shall I tell it to you instead?
I know it now as well as Madeleine, I think."

"You have heard it very often, then?"

"Very often," assented Conny; "every night
when you don't come here, Madeleine comes
and sits in that low chair, and takes me on her
lap. She turns up her pretty grey silk, you
know, for fear I should crease it, and I sit on
her petticoat, and she tells me the story."

"Always the same one?"

"Always the same," said Conny, shaking her
curls; "but I don't get tired, it's so pretty, and
the end is different sometimes."

"The end is different, Conny?"

"There are two ends!" said Conny, explaining;
"one is very pretty indeed. Madeleine likes
that one best. I think she tells it oftenest, but
sometimes she tells the other end, and then she
is so quiet and grave, and once when I kissed
her, her face was all wet."

"I'm afraid it will be too sad, Conny; I think
I'll hear the other end first. Begin, please."

'"Well, don't wriggle," said Conny, evidently
beginning from the usual starting-point, and the
story was commenced.

"Once upon a time," said Conny, "there was
a young lady who had two lovers, one very good,
and one very bad. They were both very fond
of her, and very polite." (Conny's notion of
love-making was politeness carried to its
extreme limit.) "And she liked them both, one in
her heart, and one in her manner."

Here Conny gave a little gasp. "Do you
like it?" she asked.

"Excessively," I assured her; "but I don't
understand, Conny, 'and one in her manner.'
That was rather odd, wasn't it?"

"I thought so," said Conny, doubtfully, "but
Madeleine said, 'No, it often happened.' And I
suppose she knows?"

"Probably," I agreed; and the story went on.

"The good one, the one she liked in her heart,
you know, had to go away for a long time,
where he couldn't see her at all. And while he
was gone, the bad one came in, and brought her
books—story-books, I suppose—and gave her a
paint-box, and a dog with a collar, and went out
for rides with her, and took her at night to hear
music.—Very polite, wasn't it?" Conny looked
up in my face, and didn't understand the
expression she saw there. "You don't like it,"
she said; "I shall leave off."

"I do like it, Conny; it's my back makes me
look so. Go on, dear. I want to hear the end.
What did the young lady do? Take the things
he brought her? Enjoy the rides and the music?
Throw the absent one over?"

"I don't understand you," said Conny, in her
most sensible manner. "How could she throw
him over when he was away; and what should
she throw him over? Very silly!" Having
expressed her opinion, Conny went quickly on,
that she might not be blamed for having given
it.

"Well! He talked, and talked (the bad
one did), and said such nice things, that
sometimes he didn't seem bad at all, Madeleine
said: though he always was really, you know.
And she could not help liking him very much,
and thinking it would be very pleasant to
have all his beautiful things for her very own,
and go and live with him in his fine large house.
—Did I tell you he wanted her to go and live
with him?" asked Conny, breaking off.

"The end, Conny; did she say she would?"

"Why, no," said Conny, at once sensibly, and
with impatience: "that wouldn't have been
ending happily, would it, when the other one
was good? He was the best fellow in the
world, Madeleine said."

"Goodness is not always appreciated."

There was bitterness in my tone, and Conny
lifted the pump in reproof.

"Always," she said, "when things end
happily."

She had no intention of moralising, but
imagined she was stating a fact.

"Well, Conny?"

"Well, she thought all this, till she remembered
the other one, and how fond he was of her, and
how polite he had always been, though he had
not nearly such beautiful things as the bad one
had, which, of course, prevented him from being
as polite as could have been wished. When she
remembered this, she told the bad one he might
live in his fine house himself, and keep all his
beautiful things" (here Conny got considerably
excited; she spoke with flashing eyes, and hands
that gesticulated, dealing me blows with her
puzzles and pump), "that she didn't want them,
and wouldn't live with him, because she loved
the good one better than she had ever, ever,
ever, loved him. And so do I," said Conny,
winding up rather abruptly, and siding with
virtue.—"Isn't it pretty?"

The pull up was so very sudden that I was
not prepared with an eulogium.

"Don't you like it?" asked Conny,
disappointed at my silence. "It's so pretty when