This was the day they went to the Zoo, where Nouna, looking quaintly lovely in her hastily-chosen toilette, skipped and frolicked about so that George felt like her grandfather, fed the big bear with buns until even he refused to climb up his pole for them any longer, and excited a mild “sensation” in the school-children and quiet visitors. Not one cage, not one path among the Gardens, would she leave unvisited. George might go home if he pleased--she could find her way back; but she would drink her pleasure to the dregs, ride the elephant and the camels, lunch frugally and hastily at the little restaurant, give nuts to the monkeys and biscuits to the Wapiti deer, pat the seals and shudder at the serpents, till the sun went down and it was time for the closing of the Gardens. By that time the new shoes had begun to feel a little stiff, the white gloves to look more than a little soiled, and at last poor tired Nouna burst into tears on discovering a long rent in the pretty crape shawl. “It was that nasty monkey, the one with the long ta-a-il,” she sobbed. “Oh, George, isn’t there time to go back and beat him?” “No, I’m afraid not, darling,” said George, rearranging the shawl as best he could to hide the slit. “And he didn’t know any better, poor thing.” “But I ought to know better than to be such a baby,” said she suddenly, with great solemnity, stopping her tears. “I shall be different when I’m married,” she went on, very earnestly, “for married women never cry, do they? They have something else to do. I’m afraid I shall not make a very good wife at first, George,” she said, giving herself up to the subject with as much intensity as she had just devoted to the animals, though her voice was tired now and her footsteps very slow. “I was talking it over with Miss Glass this morning, and she told me many things which I meant to write down, only I forgot: how I must find out what you like and what you dislike; she says many a husband’s love is lost by little things such as forgetting pickles, and giving him hare without--without--I don’t remember what. But I’ll ask her again. I mean to be a good wife, much better than people think, and please mamma--and--let me rest a little.”