“There are not many that would care to hear you talk, at any rate,” retorted Master Marsden; “it is gab—gab—gab; bub—a bub—a bub—wherever you are, just like a meat-fly, or a wasp, or a mosquito.” “I declare, Harry, I will write to your papa,” averred Bessie, solemnly. “Write—who cares—and send somebody to read it, will you? We always call yours fat writing at home, and pa says if there was many hands like it, ink could not be made fast enough to supply people. Writing, do you call it? I could write as well with a paste-brush.” “Are you going to be quiet, Harry, or are you not?” asked Bessie, taking a step towards him; “for, if you make another saucy speech, I will box your ears, as sure as my name is Bessie Ormson.” “Who gave you that name?” mocked the boy; whereupon Bessie proved as good as her word, and, seizing him, was about to administer condign punishment, when Harry cried out— “If you do—if you do—I’ll make a noise, and then Mrs. Dudley will come down to know what is the matter, and then I’ll tell her, and then she’ll be angry with you, for she said nobody was to speak crossly to me while I stayed in the house.” “It is quite true,” Agnes said, in answer to Bessie’s look of inquiry. “She thought we were not kind to him, and scolded him about Lally; and in the middle of all her own trouble, of course, she had time to consider Harry. You see the result.” “And pray, Harry, how long are you going to stay in the house?” inquired Bessie. “As long as I like—as long as I find it convenient,” replied the boy; “but now, I tell you what; I am quiet mostly, not because I care a button for all their threats, but because I promised Mrs. Dudley I would—there now!” “You are a curiosity,” remarked Bessie. “Not so much of one as you are. I don’t wear frizzle-gigs of things in my hair; I don’t live in a steel cage; I don’t screw myself in round the waist and walk this way,” added Master Marsden, marching up and down the room in a style which he firmly believed to be an exact imitation of Bessie. “I don’t look from under my parasol—so! and make up my face when anybody is in the room I want to think well of me; I don’t wear kicking straps and dress improvers to make my petticoats stick out—like that;” and Master Marsden pulled out his knickerbockers to their fullest width, and treated society to another representation of Bessie “sailing across a room.” If every one belonging to her had been dying at that moment, Bessie could not have refrained from laughing; and in this mirth her cousins joined. “I suppose Harry thinks that is holding the mirror up to nature,” said Lucy Dudley, at length. “No, Harry does not,” retorted the young gentleman; “he thinks it is holding the mirror up to art.” “I am art, then, am I?” inquired Bessie; and Harry nodded assent. “Well,” she said, “since it seems you have engaged this room for your performances, I will go upstairs and see Heather.” “Had not I better go up first, and tell her?” suggested Agnes.