“Just the same,” said Philippe’s mother, turning from the hearth, her cheeks flushed rosy red by the bright, hot embers, “just the same, it is a good thing that our little one should be invited to meet such a fine gentleman. It will teach him how to say the most ordinary thing elegantly, and how to carry his head high as if he were a born dandy. Philippe, repeat to your father the little speech you are to say when you meet your uncle.” “Good health to you, my dear and illustrated uncle! It gives——” “No, no, my pet, ‘my dear and _illustrious_ uncle,’ and was there not something that you forgot?” “Yes, Mother. I forgot to make my bow. Shall I make a new beginning?” “Do so.” Whereupon Philippe bent nearly double over the edge of the tub, scattering drops of water upon the floor. “Good health to you, my dear and illustrious uncle. It gives me the most great pleasure to have—_eugh!_ soap in my mouth.... _Ptu!_——” “Wait, then, until you are dressed in the new suit I have sewn for you,” and his mother, taking an earthen jar of water from the side of the fire where it had been put to warm, poured it over his head, leaving him no longer a snow boy, but a boy made of the shiniest china you can imagine. “Is that pleasant, my brave one?” “It is warm, like rain,” said Philippe, lifting his arms above his head. “I will not need another washing for a long, long time, will I, Mother?” Philippe’s grandparents lived the distance of twelve fields, a small woods, three stiles, and the width of a brook from his own home. Just how far that is, is hard to say. You see it makes such a difference whom you ask. Ask the swallows and they will tell you airily that it is no distance at all, just a flick of the wing, and you are there. But ask the snails who live under the broad leaves of the flowering mulleins, and after pondering a long time, they will tell you that it gives them a headache to think of such a tremendous distance, that it would surely take several lifetimes to travel so far, and as for themselves, they would consider it very foolish to start out on such a dangerous adventure when there were plenty of young lettuces so close at hand! To a small boy of eight, it was quite a long journey, taken alone, particularly when he could not take the short cut by wriggling through the tangled copse for fear of tearing his new suit, or being covered with last year’s burrs and barbed seeds of the undergrowth. But he reached his Grandparents’ house at last.