We entered the study, Mrs. Ellmer first, I last. The alarmed lady, on coming round the screen, was close to the monkey before she saw him. To-to only blinked up at her composedly, with no demonstration of hostility; but to my horror and amazement, no sooner did he catch sight of Babiole, who came up to him bravely by my side, with her little hand cordially outstretched towards him, than he made a savage spring at her, his teeth and eyes gleaming with malice. I was just in time to draw her back in my arms, so that he fell to the ground instead of fastening on her poor little wrist. Mrs. Ellmer screamed, Ta-ta began to bark and make judiciously-distanced rushes at the monkey; while Babiole recovered herself, very pale, but quite quiet, and I, strangely excited, gave To-to a sharp blow. 'Oh, don't!' cried the child; but then, smiling archly, though the colour driven away by the little fright had not yet come back to her cheek, she added, 'but you will give him a bone as a reward when we are gone.' 'Do you think so?' said I, in a rather constrained voice. Then, seeing that Mrs. Ellmer's eyes were fixed curiously upon me, I added, 'The first mistake, you see, was excusable; there was a reason for it. But this attack was unprovoked.' 'Yes,' said Babiole naively; 'for how could I do you any harm?' 'Yes, how indeed?' said I. But even as I said this, and looked at her blue-eyed face, I thought that perhaps the monkey might prove to be wiser than either of us, unless I grew wiser as she grew older. The rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough in the ransacking of my cabinets of curiosities; Mrs. Ellmer, who proved to be a connoisseur of more things than china, took delight in the value of the treasures themselves, while Babiole pleased herself with such as she thought beautiful, and enjoyed particularly the stories I told about the places I had found them in, and the ways in which I had picked them up. She grew radiant over the present of a Venetian bead necklace, such as can be bought in the Burlington Arcade for a few shillings; but when I told her it was a souvenir from a woman whose child I had saved from drowning, her joy in her new treasure was suddenly turned to reverence. How did I do it? It was a very simple story; a little boy of four or five had slipped into one of the canals, and I, passing in a gondola, had caught his clothes, or rather his rags, and handed the choking squalling manikin back into the custody of a black-eyed, brown-skinned woman, who had insisted, with impulsive but coquettish gratitude, on presenting me with the beads she wore round her own neck. 'Wasn't she in rags, too, then?' asked Babiole. 'Oh no, she was rather picturesquely got up.' 'Then, I should think, she was not his mother at all.' 'Perhaps not. But all mothers are not like yours.'