"It might be well if I could be changed into one like you," Annette responded; but immediately corrected herself. "No! And I do not believe that the most unfortunate and discontented person in the world would be willing to change his individuality with another. It is only his circumstances he would change, and be still himself, but at his best. Perhaps that is what will keep us contented in heaven, though we may see others far above us: each will be himself in perfection, with all the good in possession that he is capable of holding, and will see that he cannot be different without being some one else." "Perhaps," said Honora dreamily. It may be that she felt unconsciously a little of that superiority which the calm assume over the troubled, though the calm may be of the pool, and the trouble of the ocean, or both a mere question of temperament. She leaned over the lily, and examined the red clots on its petals; how they rose higher, and strained upward toward the centre, till by their passionate stress they drew up the milky flower substance into a stem to support them; as though they would reach the slender filaments that towered aloft over their heads. Two or three tiniest red spiders were picnicking on the fragrant white ground among these stems, and did not seem to even suspect the presence of a large black spider, with extravagantly long legs, which walked directly over the flower and them in two or three sextuple strides. "The petal they stand on must seem to them a soft and snowy-white moss," drawled Miss Pembroke, half asleep with the heat and the silence. "I should think the perfume of it would be too strong for their little noses." "Perhaps the particles of fragrance are too large for their little noses. Or, perhaps, they have no noses," responded Miss Ferrier, gravely. A faint, responsive murmur of assent from the other. Annette tossed twigs into the water, and watched the dimples they made, and which way they floated. "That is a wild fox up under that cage," she said. "It is cruel to keep it there. I shall free it when we go back." "Perhaps Mr. Grey is going to stuff its skin, and may not like to lose it," Honora answered, having finished her examination of the lily. "I have heard that he is quite a naturalist, and has specimens of every animal, and insect, and plant about." Annette tossed a pebble this time with energy. "I hate naturalists," she remarked. "I always fancy that they have bugs in their pockets." "Bugs in their pockets! That would be uncomfortable," was the placid comment.