And a hundred fire-flags’ sheen,

To and fro they were hurried about!

And to and fro, and in and out,

The wan stars danced between.’

“Even a child could tell you they were the searchlights trying to spot a Zepp.—only it isn’t Shakespeare! It’s very worrying. Yet I know if only I could get the book done, there would be a fortune in it. W. S. always sells, and he’s so respectable too!”

I said I was sorry my office duties had prior claim on my time, and I urged Ursula to do her sisterly part. But she said she couldn’t be bothered just then; her mind was more than fully occupied in trying to lay the blame for everything on the right person.

So I took Virginia’s MS. and read it down.

“How full of briars is this working-day world.”

This proves that barbed wire entanglements were known in the seventeenth century.

“How far that little candle throws his beams!”