For battledore they called it, there In courts of gilded chivalry; No gallant ever lived to dare To doubt its airy potency; But now, that all the pageantry Of those dead emperors departs, I dream that she in memory Plays ping-pong with my heart of hearts. L'ENVOI Ah, maiden, I must sail a sea Whereof there are no maps or charts; Wilt thou sail too, and there with me Play ping-pong with my heart of hearts? BUDGE AND TODDIE BY JOHN HABBERTON My Sunday dinner was unexceptional in point of quantity and quality, and a bottle of my brother-in-law's claret proved to be most excellent; yet a certain uneasiness of mind prevented my enjoying the meal as thoroughly as under other circumstances I might have done. My uneasiness came of a mingled sense of responsibility and ignorance. I felt that it was the proper thing for me to see that my nephews spent the day with some sense of the requirements and duties of the Sabbath; but how I was to bring it about, I hardly knew. The boys were too small to have Bible-lessons administered to them, and they were too lively to be kept quiet by any ordinary means. After a great deal of thought, I determined to consult the children themselves, and try to learn what their parents' custom had been. "Budge," said I, "what do you do Sundays when your papa and mama are home? What do they read to you,--what do they talk about?" "Oh, they swing us--lots!" said Budge, with brightening eyes. "An' zey takes us to get jacks," observed Toddie. "Oh, yes!" exclaimed Budge; "jacks-in-the-pulpit--don't you know?" "Hum--ye--es; I do remember some such thing in my youthful days. They grow where there's plenty of mud, don't they?" "Yes, an' there's a brook there, an' ferns, an' birch-bark, an' if you don't look out you'll tumble into the brook when you go to get birch." "An' we goes to Hawksnest Rock," piped Toddie, "an' papa carries us up on his back when we gets tired." "An' he makes us whistles," said Budge. "Budge," said I, rather hastily, "enough. In the language of the poet "'These earthly pleasures I resign,' and I'm rather astonished that your papa hasn't taught you to do likewise. Don't he ever read to you?" "Oh, yes," cried Budge, clapping his hands, as a happy thought struck him. "He gets down the Bible--the great _big_ Bible, you know--an' we all lay on the floor, an' he reads us stories out of it. There's David, an' Noah, an' when Christ was a little boy, an' Joseph, an' turnbackPharo'sarmyhallelujah--" "And what?" "TurnbackPharo'sarmyhallelujah," repeated Budge. "Don't you know how Moses held out his cane over the Red Sea, an' the water went way up one side, an' way up the other side, and all the Isrulites went across? It's just the same thing as _drown_oldPharo'sarmyhallelujah--don't you know?" "Budge," said I, "I suspect you of having heard the Jubilee Singers."