“I mean that you should be able, when you _don’t_ mean a thing to be taken seriously, to express that wish. For human nature is so constituted that whatever you write seriously is taken as a joke, and whatever you mean as a joke is taken seriously! At any rate, it is so in writing to a _lady_!” “Ah! you’re not used to writing to ladies!” Lady Muriel remarked, leaning back in her chair, and gazing thoughtfully into the sky. “You should try.” “Very good,” said Arthur. “How many ladies may I begin writing to? As many as I can count on the fingers of both hands?” “As many as you can count on the _thumbs_ of _one_ hand!” his lady-love replied with much severity. “What a _very_ naughty little boy he is! _Isn’t_ he?” (with an appealing glance at me). “He’s a little fractious,” I said. “Perhaps he’s cutting a tooth.” While to myself I said “How _exactly_ like Sylvie talking to Bruno!” “He wants his tea.” (The naughty little boy volunteered the information.) “He’s getting very tired, at the mere _prospect_ of the great party to-morrow!” “Then he shall have a good rest beforehand!” she soothingly replied. “The tea isn’t made yet. Come, little boy, lean well back in your chair, and think about nothing—or about _me_, whichever you prefer!” “All the same, all the same!” Arthur sleepily murmured, watching her with loving eyes, as she moved her chair away to the tea table, and began to make the tea. “Then he’ll wait for his tea, like a good, patient little boy!” “Shall I bring you the London Papers?” said Lady Muriel. “I saw them lying on the table as I came out, but my father said there was nothing in them, except that horrid murder-trial.” (Society was just then enjoying its daily thrill of excitement in studying the details of a specially sensational murder in a thieves’ den in the East of London.) “I have no appetite for horrors,” Arthur replied. “But I hope we have learned the lesson they should teach us—though we are very apt to read it backwards!” [Illustration: ‘I AM SITTING AT YOUR FEET’] “You speak in riddles,” said Lady Muriel. “Please explain yourself. See now,” suiting the action to the word, “I am sitting at your feet, just as if you were a second Gamaliel! Thanks, no.” (This was to me, who had risen to bring her chair back to its former place.) “Pray don’t disturb yourself. This tree and the grass make a very nice easy-chair. _What_ is the lesson that one always reads wrong?” Arthur was silent for a minute. “I would like to be clear what it _is_ I mean,” he said, slowly and thoughtfully, “before I say anything to _you_—because you _think_ about it.” Anything approaching to a compliment was so unusual an utterance for Arthur, that it brought a flush of pleasure to her cheek, as she replied “It is _you_, that give me the ideas to think about.”