“So he went away,” Bruno added as a kind of postscript, when the last note of the song had died away. “Just like he always did.” “Oh, my _dear_ Bruno!” Sylvie exclaimed, with her hands over her ears. “You shouldn’t say ‘like’: you should say ‘_what_.’” To which Bruno replied, doggedly, “I only says ‘what!’ when oo doosn’t speak loud, so as I can hear oo.” “Where did he go to?” I asked, hoping to prevent an argument. “He went more far than he’d never been before,” said Bruno. “You should never say ‘more far,’” Sylvie corrected him: “you should say ‘_farther_.’” “Then _oo_ shouldn’t say ‘more broth,’ when we’re at dinner,” Bruno retorted: “oo should say ‘_brother_’!” This time Sylvie evaded an argument by turning away, and beginning to roll up the Map. “Lessons are over!” she proclaimed in her sweetest tones. “And has there been no _crying_ over them?” I enquired. “Little boys _always_ cry over their lessons, don’t they?” “I never cries after twelve o’clock,” said Bruno: “’cause then it’s getting so near to dinner-time.” “Sometimes, in the morning,” Sylvie said in a low voice; “when it’s Geography-day, and when he’s been disobe——” “_What_ a fellow you are to talk, Sylvie!” Bruno hastily interposed. “Doos oo think the world was _made_ for oo to talk in?” “Why, where would you _have_ me talk, then?” Sylvie said, evidently quite ready for an argument. But Bruno answered resolutely. “I’m not going to argue about it, ’cause it’s getting late, and there wo’n’t be time—but oo’s as ’ong as ever oo can be!” And he rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, in which tears were beginning to glitter. _Sylvie’s_ eyes filled with tears in a moment. “I didn’t mean it, Bruno, _darling_!” she whispered; and the rest of the argument was lost ‘amid the tangles of Neæra’s hair,’ while the two disputants hugged and kissed each other. But this new form of argument was brought to a sudden end by a flash of lightning, which was closely followed by a peal of thunder, and by a torrent of rain-drops, which came hissing and spitting, almost like live creatures, through the leaves of the tree that sheltered us. “Why, it’s raining cats and dogs!” I said. “And all the _dogs_ has come down _first_,” said Bruno: “there’s nothing but _cats_ coming down now!” In another minute the pattering ceased, as suddenly as it had begun. I stepped out from under the tree, and found that the storm was over; but I looked in vain, on my return, for my tiny companions. They had vanished with the storm, and there was nothing for it but to make the best of my way home.