And now it is morning again, and the sun is streaming through the chink in the wooden shutter, which you neglected to fasten properly last night. Someone below in the garden is singing, and you speed your toilet to the merry tune and time:— “The Hunt is up, the Hunt is up, And it is well nigh Daye, Harry our King has gone hunting To bring his Deere to baye. The East is bright with Morning Lighte, And Darkness it is fled, And the merrie Horn wakes up the Morn To leave his idle Bed. Behold the Skies with golder Dies. Tra la la la la la!” “Up with it, young ones; up with the burden though it do come before it’s time,” says the merry voice of your host. And certainly they take him at his word, until the thrushes and blackbirds start singing, too—in self-defence. “Shall we visit the menagerie now?” queries Master More, when there comes a moment’s silence in the wake of the “good-morrows” which greeted your appearance. “Nay,” as you look round the groups for an explanation, “these be not the only wild animals we keep in the enclosure.” And then you look again, and see that everybody has some feeding stuff in his or her hand, and you find yourself presently engaged on a round of visits to the quaintest and most varied collection of pet-animals you ever dreamed of. There is one condition laid down in this household for all who would own a pet in it, and that is that the whole care of it devolves on the owner. Methinks in this there is a fine training in thoughtfulness and in the sense of responsibility as well as in Natural History. There is a little time to spare yet, it seems, before the bell rings for Mass, and you willingly accept the invitation to pass it in the study in the new building. “And Meg shall come with us, too,” your host promises, “but for the others, I would ask no four walls to try and hold them while they be in such spirits.” So off they go scampering round the garden, the wild young things! In the new building you find a long gallery lined with books, which leads to a charming little room built all for study and retirement. On the broad oak table lie leaves of the manuscript which has occupied Master More during long hours while all the world beside slept. “Oh! Father,” says Margaret reproachfully, “what a state your desk is in,” and, thereupon, she sets about tidying it with deft hands, and an understanding mind. “Our Meg here,” says her father, laying a hand on her bonny brown head, “is the only one of her sex one can trust among one’s books and papers, with the hope of finding one’s way safely through them after her. She is the tidy part of my own soul.”