"He's a mule," sobbed Sylvia, breaking down entirely. "I could bear it better if he had been a nice mule.... B—but he isn't!"
"Whatever he may be," declared Horace, as he knelt by her chair endeavouring to comfort her, "nothing can alter my profound respect for him. And you must let me see him, Sylvia; because I fully believe I shall be able to cheer him up."
"If you imagine you can persuade him to—to laugh it off!" said Sylvia, tearfully.
"I wasn't proposing to try to make him see the humorous side of his situation," Horace mildly explained. "I trust I have more tact than that. But he may be glad to know that, at the worst, it is only a temporary inconvenience. I'll take care that he's all right again before very long."
She started up and looked at him, her eyes widened with dawning dread and mistrust.
"If you can speak like that," she said, "it must have been you who—no, I can't believe it—that would be too horrible!"
"I who did what, Sylvia? Weren't you there when—when it happened?"
"No," she replied. "I was only told of it afterwards. Mother heard papa talking loudly in his study this morning, as if he was angry with somebody, and at last she grew so uneasy she couldn't bear it any longer, and went in to see what was the matter with him. Dad was quite alone and looked as usual, only a little excited; and then, without the slightest warning, just as she entered the room, he—he changed slowly into a mule before her eyes! Anybody but mamma would have lost her head and roused the whole house."
"Thank Heaven she didn't!" said Horace, fervently. "That was what I was most afraid of."