"You called me a tub just now; and this perfect and wonderful creature that lives in the clouds is superior to all the Angels, but even a star may look down into a tub, as they showed us the eclipse last summer. On the other hand, the tub may look up at the star; but, George, can it talk about the star? Come, that is a very sound argument now. You can't get out of that, do what you will. You are bound to tell me everything, darling George, by the force of your own reasoning." No other relative but a brother could have held out against such coaxing ways. She came, and sat upon my knee, and touched me with a run-away glance (as a child does to a child before any cares come between them) and then brought the hollow of her temple into mine, as if to say--"How could I run away from you?" And then with the freshness of her sweet hair falling round me (which brought into my mind at once our joyful romps together) she knew a great deal better than to visit me with sentimental lips, though they were quivering--for what man cares to kiss his sister, except upon her forehead? But she, being up to all devices, found I had a button off; and in the very place where it should have been, which happened to be very near my heart, there she laid her fingers trembling, and began to reproach herself instead of me. "None of that!" I said, with the powers of logic coming to my aid; although I defy any father, grandfather, or uncle to have so got out of it. "Everybody knows how good you are. Well, well, do anything you like with me." "Now if it had only been somebody else, somebody who never can know everything about you, as your favourite sister does, would you have called her a humbug, George--to use one of your own sweet expressions? Or would you have said, 'Yes, you have a right to know, you ought to know everything about my affairs. I should be unworthy of the name of man, if I kept any secrets from you, my dear.' And then what a help you would have, as soon as ever--" "As soon as ever I had told her all about myself! How you do mix up things! But this curiosity of yours is useless. I am compelled to maintain strict silence, until certain important events have taken place. Until--" "Why, it must be at least a Princess!" Grace exclaimed, jumping up, and clapping her hands, and then walking, as if she had a ten-yard train behind her; "we must all be kept waiting, until the impending vacancy of the throne occurs." [Illustration: "_Why, it must at least be a Princess._"] "Exactly so," I answered; for after that bit of impudence, and her look of contempt at the ceiling, she deserved to be driven to Bedlam by the goads of curiosity; "how clever of you! There is a throne in question, and one of the most ancient in the world. Well, I never should have thought you could hit the mark like that!"