“Sometimes they even flapped their wings. “Which was too cruel. “Forsooth, children are always cruel. “But while Delilah’s ambition was always the same, those of Lilith and Le Page covered an exceeding wide range. Some evenings Lilith would draw a glowing picture of herself as a lecturer of renown with a wonderful personal magnetism and a telling style--she would move the multitudes and draw tears from stony eyes by lifting up her voice. Whereupon Le Page, when he had recovered his breath, would portray himself as a celebrated scientist delving in marvelous chemical mysteries and discovering things of untold benefit to the race. He also would move the multitudes and draw tears from stony eyes. “And Delilah would wonder what were lecturers and scientists, and how they could do these things. “And when Lilith would announce her intention of becoming a famous sculptor whose work in the passionate would be the delight of her day, then Le Page would turn his mind to the idea of becoming a noted explorer who would penetrate into Darkest Africa and Farthest North, and whose work in the passionate would be the delight of his day. “And Delilah would marvel still more. “Forsooth, children are always like that--and fascinating they are. “And each summer evening after Lilith and Le Page had related their ambitions, their father would ask Delilah what was hers. Then always Delilah would whisper; ‘I’m going to study tombstones, papa! And when I get big perhaps I shall know what every single tombstone in the world means. And perhaps after I’ve studied a long time and hard I can read Roland’s right off and know what it means without thinking. And perhaps I can explain them all to people who don’t know about them.’ “Which to Delilah was a daring ambition indeed--quite hitching her wagon to a star. “Well, then,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “this was when the Spoon-bill family was in its youngness. “The years followed one after another, and the three children grew. And it came about that Lilith was three-and-twenty, and Le Page was two-and-twenty, and Delilah was twenty. “They were much as they had been when they were children. Lilith, I may say in passing, was not an actress, nor a lecturer, nor yet a sculptor--and Le Page was merely Le Page. “Also Delilah was Delilah, but had ceased to be elementary in some ways, while in others she was still, and so would be until the finish. “It so happened that a young spoon-bill of masculine persuasion, from the other side of the great green river Nile, fell in love with Delilah. “Likewise Delilah fell in love with a young spoon-bill, but not that young spoon-bill. “It happens frequently so. “And Delilah did not fancy the spoon-bill from the other side of the river, and the spoon-bill with whom Delilah was in love did not fancy her in just that way. “Which also happens frequently.