'Good evening,' he began, with one of his nastiest sneers. 'And how are you after your little romance, eh? Master Archie very nearly had your pretty little empty head off—but of course I couldn't allow that. I hope you enjoyed yourself?'
'I did at first,' said Ethelinda; 'I got frightened afterwards, when I thought it wasn't going to end at all nicely. But did you notice how very wickedly that dreadful jester behaved to me—it will be a warning to me against associating with such persons in future, and I assure you that there was something about him that made me shudder from the very first! I have heard terrible things about the dolls in the Lowther Arcade, and what can you expect at such prices? Well, he's rewarded for his crimes, and that's a comfort to think of—but it has all upset me very much indeed, and I don't want any more romance—it does shorten the hair so!'
The Dutch fairy doll heard her and was very angry, for she knew of course why the jester had come to a tragic ending.
'Shall I tell her now, and make her ashamed and sorry—would she believe me? would she care? Perhaps not, but I must speak out some time—only I had better wait till the clock has stopped. I can't bear her to talk about that poor jester in this way.'
But it really did not matter to the jester, who could hear or feel nothing any more—for they had thrown him into the dustbin, where, unless the dustcart has called since, he is lying still.
AN UNDERGRADUATE'S AUNT
ancis Flushington belonged to a small college, and by becoming a member conferred upon it one of the few distinctions it could boast—the possession of the very bashfulest man in the whole university.
But his college did not treat him with any excess of adulation on that account, and, probably from a prudent fear of rubbing the bloom off his modesty, allowed him to blush unseen—which was indeed the condition in which he preferred to blush.