On a bench at the summit of the Torrs sat three Elders. Gray-bearded and full of confidence in their own wisdom. On another bench facing them sat a cherry-cheeked maiden of some nineteen summers, evidently an elder sister in charge of a little brother, with whom in a shy sort of way, as if old enough to know better, and yet unable to resist the temptation, she was sharing, with very evident relish, some succulent toffy recently extracted from one of the many "penny-in-the-slot" machines, which, as "bits of colour," are such brilliant ornaments to the Torrs Walks, and such universal favourites with youth of all ages. The three Elders were discoursing on the mysteries of creation, with such a "cock-sureness" of tone as seemed to imply that they themselves had been on some committee of management when the first idea of making this particular planet, called the world, had occurred to its Creator. "These rocks," said one grandly, "were in existence long before the date assigned to the creation." Whereat the toffy-sucking girl sniggered foolishly as if somehow personally implicated, while the boy stared, open mouthed, with toffy, yet untasted, in his dexter hand. "No one," observed the second Elder, blandly, his eyes on the maiden,--not by any means a SUSANNA but rather a fairly educated AWDREY,--"no one now accepts the Mosaic account of Creation as given in Genesis." The boy looked up, inquiringly, at his sister. The girl giggled bashfully as if, in presence of so much learning and such reverend seniors, she were suddenly somewhat ashamed of the home-teaching she had received, and in which her trust had never been shaken, at least until this minute. The third Elder, his eye too on the girl and boy,--and perhaps the toffy,--now joined in. "It was absurd," quoth he, supremely, "to believe that this"--here with a wave of his hand he took in air, earth, sky, and all points of the compass--"was made in six days." Then both boy and girl sniggered at one another. "I suppose they teach you that all this," said the third Elder, straightly addressing the girl, and again explaining his allusion to the universe by waving his right hand about in an all-embracing gesture, "that this was made in six days, eh?" With a demure and silly giggle the damsel admitted that her education on the subject had tended in the direction indicated. The three Elders regarded one another with a sad, despondent air, as though here were another case of crass ignorance which they had a special mission to enlighten. "Why," said the second Elder, "the Chinese"--here the little boy became suddenly interested--"the Chinese possess records which reach back to a date anterior, by some thousands of years, to that popularly assigned by Christians to the creation of the world." The girl opened her eyes, but the boy, having lost his suddenly awakened interest in the Chinese (probably he had expected some stories about the war with Japan, or another tale of _Aladdin_), had