'Confound you!' said George. 'You take good care your prophecies come off. Why, man, you're not going to pretend you don't know that it's your own carelessness that's brought this about! This isn't the only house you've brought bad luck into, Mr. What's-your-name, since you've started in business!' 'You can't make me lose my temper,' replied the plumber with dignity. 'I put it down to ignirance.' 'So do I,' said George. 'And if I know anyone who's anxious for a little typhoid, or wants his house burnt down at a moderate charge, why, I shall know whom to recommend. Good-day.' He turned on his heel and walked off, but Ella lingered behind. 'I only just wanted to tell you,' she said, addressing the astonished plumber, 'that you have done us a very great service, and I, at least, am very much obliged to you.' And she fluttered away after her _fiance_. The plumber--that instrument of Destiny--looked after the retreating couple, and indulged in a mystified whistle. '_'E_ comes a bullyragging of me,' he observed to a lamp-post, 'and she's "very much obliged"! And I'm blowed if I know what for, either way! Cracked, poor young things, cracked, the pair on 'em--and no wonder, with such a calamity so recent. Ah, well, I do 'ope as this is the end on it. I 'ope I shan't be the means of bringing no more trouble into that little 'ouse--that I kin truly say!' And--human gratitude having its limits--it is highly probable that this pious aspiration will not be disappointed, so long, at least, as Mr. and Mrs. Chapman's tenancy continues. _DON; THE STORY OF A GREEDY DOG_ A TALE FOR CHILDREN 'Daisy, dearest,' said Miss Millikin anxiously to her niece one afternoon, 'do you think poor Don is quite the thing? He has seemed so very languid these last few days, and he is certainly losing his figure!' Daisy was absorbed in a rather ambitious attempt to sketch the lake from the open windows of Applethwaite Cottage, and did not look up from her drawing immediately. When she did speak her reply might perhaps have been more sympathetic. 'He _eats_ such a lot, auntie!' she said. 'Yes, Don, we _are_ talking about you. You know you eat too much, and that's the reason you're so disgracefully fat!' Don, who was lying on a rug under the verandah, wagged his tail with an uneasy protest, as if he disapproved (as indeed he did) of the very personal turn Daisy had given to the conversation. He had noticed himself that he was not as active as he used to be; he grew tired so very soon now when he chased birds (he was always possessed by a fixed idea that, if he only gave his whole mind to it, he could catch any swallow that flew at all fairly); he felt the heat considerably. Still, it was Don's opinion that, so long as he did not mind being fat himself, it was no business of any other person's--certainly not of Daisy's. 'But, Daisy,' cried Miss Millikin plaintively, 'you don't really mean that I overfeed him?'