"Oh! 'twas lovely!" says he. "'Twas splendid! There was lights all over the house. 'Twas like night--only 'twasn't night, and that was grand! And there were heaps of people. A whole town was there. And there were----Grandpa! why did they have lamps there when it was daytime?" "Because they have no windows in a theatre," says Sir George, patting the little hot, fat hand that is lying on his arm, with a strange sensation of pleasure in the touch of it. "No windows?" with big eyes opened wide. "Not one." "Then why have we windows?" asks Tommy, with an involuntary glance round him. "Why are there windows anywhere? It's ever so much nicer without them. Why can't we have lamps always, like the theatre people?" "Why, indeed?" says Mr. Browne, sympathetically. "Sir George, I hope you will take your grandson's advice to heart, and block up all these absurd windows, and let a proper ray of light descend upon us from the honest burner. Who cares for strikes? Not I!" "Well, Tommy, we'll think about it," says Sir George. "And now go on. You saw----" "Bluebeard!" says Tommy, almost roaring in the excitement of his delight. "A big Bluebeard, and he was just like the pictures of him at home, with his toes curled up and a red towel round his head and a blue night-gown and a smiter in his hand." "A cimeter, Tommy?" suggests his mother, gently. "Eh?" says Tommy. "Well, it's all the same," says he, after a pause, replete with deep research and with a truly noble impartiality. "It is, indeed!" says Mr. Browne, open encouragement in his eye. "And so you saw Mr. Bluebeard! And did he see you?" "Oh! he saw me!" cries Mabel, in a little whimpering' tone. "He looked straight into the little house where we were, and I saw his eye--his horrid eye!" shaking her small head vigorously--"and it ran right into mine, and he began to walk up to me, and I----" She stops, her pretty red lips quivering, her blue eyes full of tears. "Oh, Mabel was so frightened!" says Tommy, the Bold. "She stuck her nose into nurse's fur cape and roared!" "I didn't!" says Mabel promptly. "You did!" says Tommy, indignant at being contradicted, "and she said it would never be worth a farthing ever after, and----Well, any way, you know, Mabel, you didn't like the heads." "Oh, no; I didn't--I hated them! They were all hanging to one side; and there was nasty blood, and they looked as if they was going to waggle," concludes Mabel, with a terrified sob, burying her own head in her mother's lap. "Oh! she is too young," says Barbara, nervously clasping her little woman close to her in a quiet, undemonstrative way, but so as to make the child herself feel the protection of her arms. "Too young for so dismal a sight," says Dysart, stooping over and patting Mabel's sunny curls with a kindly touch. He is very fond of children, as are all men, good and bad. "I should not have let her go," says Mrs. Monkton, with self-reproach. "Such exhibitions are painful for young minds, however harmless."