"But you have no better philosophy to offer the disconsolate little fellow, Mr. Ban Berg?" Miss Burton asked. "Now, Van, it's your turn. Remember, Miss Burton, he has the same vantage-ground that I have. Indeed he's half an inch taller." "The world long ago learned better than to measure men by inches, Mr. Stanton." "Alas, Miss Burton," said Van Berg; "the best philosophy I have is this: when it rains, let it rain." "And thus I'm privileged to meet representatives of those two ancient and honorable schools, the Stoic and Epicurean, and you both think, I fear, that if Xanthippe had founded a school, my philosophy would also be defined. But perhaps you will think better of me if I tell that little fellow a story to pass the time for him. What's the matter, little folk?" she asked, for two or three more small clouded faces had gathered at the door. "Matter enough," said the boy. "This horrid old rain keeps us in the house, where we can't do anything or stay anywhere. We mustn't play in the parlor, we mustn't make a noise in the halls, we mustn't run on the piazzas. I'd like to live in a world where there was some place for boys." "Poor child," said Miss Burton; "this rain is as bad for you as the deluge to Noah's dove, it has left you no refuge for the sole of your foot. Will you come with me? No one has said you must not hear a jolly story." "You won't tell me about any good little boys who died when they were as big as I am?" "I'll keep my word--it shall be a jolly story." "May we hear it too?" asked the other children. "Yes, all of you." "Where shall we go?" "We won't disturb any one in the far corner of the parlor by the piano. If you know of any other little people, you can bring them there, too," and they each darted off in search of especial cronies. "May we not hear the story also?" asked Stanton. "No, indeed, I may be able to interest children, but not philosophers." "Then we will go and meditate," said Van Berg. "Yes," she added, "and in accordance with a New York custom of great antiquity, made familiar to you, no doubt, by that grave historian Diedrich Knickerbocker, who gives several graphic accounts of such cloudy ruminations on the part of your city's great-grandfathers." "I fear you think that the worshipful Peter Stuyvensant's counsellors indulged in more tobacco than thought, and that the majority of them had as few ideas as one of Mr. Burleigh's chimneys," said Van Berg. "And you regard us as the direct descendants of these men, whose lives were crowned with smoke-wreaths only." "Now, Mr. Van Berg, you prove yourself to be a philosopher of a modern school, you draw your inductions so far and wide from your diminutive premise." "Well, Miss Burton, you stand in very favorable contrast with us poor mortals. We are going out to add to the clouds that lower over the world, while you are trying to banish them."