The old gentleman would have been an agreeable apparition compared with that. Do you know, the grin absolutely froze on my face; for a moment I stared, then turned tail and ran, Basan after me. Half-way down the stairs I remembered the bill.
"'You must go back and give it him!' I said in an agony, and I pushed him back.
"Meanwhile papa was capering at the top of the stairs in a perfect fury, asking how we dared go to his room, what we wanted there, did we mean to break the staircase in with our confounded boots, etc. When Basan went back with the letter, he tore it out of his hand, saw what it was, and then threw it at him! Basan never stopped to pick it up that time; he ran in good earnest, so did I. To this day it was a mystery to us how he got up there, for we saw him go into the library."
"I know it all so well," says Alice, drying her eyes, "but we have had more amusing rows than that."
"Do you remember———" And here we slide off into a crowd of ludicrous reminiscences, that are very real and true, and ridiculous to us, but maybe would seem sad and unlikely enough to other people. Perhaps they would not understand how we could laugh at all over such things; but, thank God, we have ever been able to find a silver lining to our clouds, and it is better to bear our ills with a smiling countenance, is it not, than to turn bitter, and hard and cynical, and rail against heaven?
CHAPTER VII.
And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more."
We are feeding the gold and silver fish in the pool before the drawing-room windows, Paul Vasher and I. He is providing for
