"Not quite all--I have given you some bits that I particularly like, but there is much more. You need not be uneasy about my being tired," he said smiling; "if I were, by your own shewing I can have rest. However, Miss Faith--lessons being the order of the day--will you read French to me?" In her reading, Faith came to the description of the philosopher's perplexity in finding that the birds would not pick up the crumbs he threw to them on the roof as usual. He concluded the feathered things were not more reason able than mankind, and had taken fright for nothing. "J'allais fermer ma fenêtre sur cette réflexion, quand j'aperçois tout à coup, dans l'espace lumineux qui s'étend à droite, l'ombre de deux oreilles qui se dressent, puis une griffe qui s'avance, puis la tête d'un chat tigré qui se montre à l'angle de la gouttière. Le drôle était là en embuscade, espérant que les aniettes lui amèneraient du gibier. "Et moi qui accusais la couardise de mes hôtes! J'étais sûr qu'aucun danger ne les menaçait! je croyais avoir bien regardé partout! je n'avais oublié que le coin derrière moi! "Dans la vie comme sur les toits, que de malheurs arrivent pour avoir oublié un seul coin!" Faith closed the book then, very much amused with the philosopher's "chat tigré." "But often one can't see round the corner," she remarked. A little gesture of lips and brow, half asserted that if one could not, _one_ could: but Mr. Linden only said, "Most true! Miss Faith. Nevertheless, the knowledge that there _are_ corners is not to be despised." "I don't know. I shouldn't like to live always in fear of seeing the shadow of a cat's ears come in." "Have you quite outgrown the love of cats?" said Mr. Linden smiling. "No, but I was talking of the fear of corners," she said with an answering smile. "I don't think I want to remember the corners, Mr. Linden." "I don't think I want you should. Philosophers and birds, you know, go through the world on different principles." She laughed a little at that, gave the hearth a parting brush, and went off to dinner. Business claimed its place after dinner, business of a less pleasant kind, quite up to the time when Faith must put on her bonnet to walk with Dr. Harrison.