CHAPTER XI.
If their purgations did consist in words
They are as innocent as grace itself—
Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not."
"George!" I say, in a muffled voice.
"Yes!" he answers in another.
"Supposing somebody comes and sits down on us?"
"A little more or less could not make much difference?"
"I wish we had not let them do it. Does not your nose tickle horribly?"
"Rather. That's your fifteenth sneeze, Nell."
"Yes, you ought to condole with me over them, as the ancients did with each other when they were convulsed in like manner."
"I would if it prevented the repetition."
"I wonder when Dolly and Basan will come back. Supposing they forget us altogether?"
"We should become meat for pitchforks."
George and I have the use of our ears, but of our faculties not at all; although we are out in a field in broad daylight, we cannot see an inch beyond our noses, and nobody can see us, unless indeed the two mounds that represent us may be supposed to give some grotesque outlines of our shapes. In point of fact we are snugly buried in the hay, Dolly and Basan having officiated as sextons, and we are weighed down almost as securely as though solid earth, and not heaps of dried grass, were piled above us. Hay by the handful is one thing, hay in the lump is another; and with our arms and legs laid out straight and flat, and an unlimited quantity of the material heaped upon us, we can move about as easily as though we were in a vice. Not to kill us, however, by too much cherishing, they have put a light covering over our faces, so that,
