“Ow! I did feel funny that night,” chuckled Harold. “Thought the house was comin' down, it jumped about so; and Martha had to carry me up to bed, 'cos the stairs was goin' all waggity!” We gazed searchingly at our graceless junior; but it was clear that he viewed the matter in the light of a phenomenon rather than of a delinquency. A third bottle was by this time circling; and Selina, who had evidently waited for it to reach her, took a most unfairly long pull, and then jumping up and shaking out her frock, announced that she was going for a walk. Then she fled like a hare; for it was the custom of our Family to meet with physical coercion any independence of action in individuals. “She's off with those Vicarage girls again,” said Edward, regarding Selina's long black legs twinkling down the path. “She goes out with them every day now; and as soon as ever they start, all their heads go together and they chatter, chatter, chatter the whole blessed time! I can't make out what they find to talk about. They never stop; it's gabble, gabble, gabble right along, like a nest of young rooks!” “P'raps they talk about birds'-eggs,” I suggested sleepily (the sun was hot, the turf soft, the ginger-beer potent); “and about ships, and buffaloes, and desert islands; and why rabbits have white tails; and whether they'd sooner have a schooner or a cutter; and what they'll be when they're men--at least, I mean there's lots of things to talk about, if you WANT to talk.” “Yes; but they don't talk about those sort of things at all,” persisted Edward. “How CAN they? They don't KNOW anything; they can't DO anything--except play the piano, and nobody would want to talk about THAT; and they don't care about anything--anything sensible, I mean. So what DO they talk about?” “I asked Martha once,” put in Harold; “and she said, 'Never YOU mind; young ladies has lots of things to talk about that young gentlemen can't understand.'” “I don't believe it,” Edward growled. “Well, that's what she SAID, anyway,” rejoined Harold, indifferently. The subject did not seem to him of first-class importance, and it was hindering the circulation of the ginger-beer. We heard the click of the front-gate. Through a gap in the hedge we could see the party setting off down the road. Selina was in the middle: a Vicarage girl had her by either arm; their heads were together, as Edward had described; and the clack of their tongues came down the breeze like the busy pipe of starlings on a bright March morning. “What DO they talk about, Charlotte?” I inquired, wishing to pacify Edward. “You go out with them sometimes.” “I don't know,” said poor Charlotte, dolefully. “They make me walk behind, 'cos they say I'm too little, and mustn't hear. And I DO want to so,” she added.