"If they did, they'd burn their tongues," said Mary. "Well, now, did you ever hear a more old-fashioned remark?" "_Passer deliciæ meæ puellæ_," boomed Mr. Fawcus. Until Mary discovered that new world in the roof, her chief pleasure apart from the backyard had been a cellar in front of the basement which was lighted from a square of opaque glass set in the pavement of the street. She was willing to spend hours here, sitting on an old footstool, surrounded by her dolls and pretending to be a sea-nymph. A wet day, and it was chiefly on wet days that Mary frequented this cellar, heightened the illusion of being under the sea, because the skylight, if such an aperture may be called a skylight, when blurred with rain was more than usually aqueous, and the shadows of people passing overhead were more than usually like fish. Mrs. Fawcus, when she first heard of Mary's pastime, was moved to utter dark interpretations of it. "Depend upon it, Uncle William, that child's life is going to be mixed up with deep water. Mark my words, she'll cross the sea many a time before she goes down to the grave." "Do not vaticinate, my dear," her husband commanded. "Absit omen!" "I don't know what you're talking about, but when any one thinks of that night ten years ago and when any one sees that dear innocent sitting out there and staring up at the fishes, as she calls them, well, any one may be forgiven for doing what any one's told by their husband they mustn't do." "Ten years ago," Mr. Fawcus repeated. "So it is. I wish you'd keep your thoughts to yourself sometimes, Aunt Lucy. Ten years ago!" She shuddered, for he was thinking of those fresh proposals to be made in ten years. "Here's the money from the lawyers," said Mrs. Fawcus one morning in March, handing her husband the familiar envelope which had arrived regularly every quarter-day. Mr. Fawcus, on whose countenance a decade of looking after the stock of Messrs. Holland and Brown had not left a mark, became suddenly old and flabby when he read through that letter. In that moment even his Latinity deserted him. The dreadful fact could not be evaded like so many other facts in his life by ponderous rhetoric and polysyllabic euphemisms. "We've got to give her up," he groaned. His wife snatched the letter from him. "Where's Mary?" she asked, quickly looking round before she said anything Mary ought not to hear. "She's gone up to her attic to sow the seeds I bought her yesterday. She wanted to try sweet sultans this year. She's up in the attic sowing sweet sultans." Mr. Fawcus buried his face in his hands and bent low in unutterable despair, while his wife read the lawyer's letter. 151 Lamb's Conduit Street, W.C., _March 24, 1870_. _Dear Sir_,