Aunt Amelia was staying with us at the time, so I asked her about it, but she said it was not a nice thing for any little girl to talk about, especially a clergyman’s daughter. I shed tears then and ran out in the woods, but Nannie followed me,— ’Oh, what an old fool the woman is; how much longer is she going to stay? Don’t you worry, dearie, ’tisn’t the first time that a buck and doe’s got mixed, and won’t be the last neither. I expect you got ’em muddled when you cleaned them out.’ Thus Nannie brought a situation, electric with insuperable difficulties, down to the level of homely everydayness, where I felt I could cope with it. She is always like that. I changed dear Buckiebuckie’s name then to ’Adam and Eve,’ because he was the mother of all living and he’d ’ad em! Somehow, when we were children there always seemed to be trouble when Aunt Amelia was in the house. We always said dreadful things in front of her, or else the things we usually said were noticed more. The very first time she came to stay, when we were six years old, there were two ructions in as many minutes. We had a hen at that time called ’The Old Maid,’ because she was of uncertain age and used to peck the others, and as she hadn’t earned her board and keep we had her boiled for luncheon. It was some one’s birthday and we kids were allowed to lunch downstairs. Father carved and in great disgust said,— ’Whatever bird is this?’ ’"The Old Maid," daddy,’ said Ross. ’Well, it doesn’t seem to have much breast.’ ’But then,’ as my small brother remarked, ’you wouldn’t expect an old maid to have much, would you?’ I made the next _faux pas_, but it was kindly meant. Aunt Amelia grumbled that she had been quite chilly in the night and hadn’t been able to sleep, so I said,— ’Mother, couldn’t we search the parish for a young virgin for Aunt Amelia like King David had when he was old and gat no heat?’ Father exploded into his tumbler. But Aunt Amelia said she had hoped that I would grow up a good, pure woman like my grandmother. Daddy lost his temper then and said he profoundly hoped his daughter wouldn’t grow up ’a good, pure woman’ if it meant that——’ ’Anthony!’ said mother. And father said ’Sorry, Biddy,’ and asked Aunt Amelia if she’d have some more bread sauce. (Mother and daddy always called hot water bottles ’Young Virgins’ after that!) After lunch we all went down to the lake, and going through the woods I said something was ’infernal,’ and there was a horrid silence. Daddy is like that, he so seldom says anything. It’s what he doesn’t say that’s so beastly if he’s displeased with one, so I said, ’Mustn’t I, daddy?’ and he replied, ’I think you know quite well, darling.’ ’But,’ I expostulated, ’surely one might sometimes.’ I looked round that wood. ’Why, daddy, I might say we were in fernal regions now, look at them all up that bank.’ Daddy looked amused and his eyes all curled up at the corners,—