Fig. 141.—"A Round, Horizontal Snare of Uloborus, Spread Within the Hollow of the Trunk."
"Didn't we batter them, though?" she ran on. "Down went tents! Down went barricades! Down went fort—Hoogh!" Here Madam gave one of her little coughs. "Well, no, not exactly that, neither. That was too much for us. But no matter! The vile old den got its deserts anyhow. Ho, ho! Phaugh! And how's Spite the Spy? Has his breath improved any? Wheeze—Dear me! I doubt if he ever scrubs his teeth. Think of a pure, sweet Breeze-body like myself having to wrestle with such as he! Don't ask me to! No, no! It's too funny, ho, ho!—Wheeze—hoogh! You see my asthma's no better—Wheeze!"
All this time the Elf had been seated on a broad leaf swinging like a pendulum, and gazing into the clouds. She suddenly stopped and looked into the Ensign's face.
"Dear me!" she cried, "I—I—and so it's not Bruce this time? The rogue—the scamp—the—ah!—Wheeze! How could he dare to deceive me so?—Hoogh!"
For one minute Madam Breeze sat still, actually for a whole minute! The fact is, she was just a trifle afraid of Ensign Lawe, the only one of all the Brownies, by the way, who ever dashed her high spirits a particle. During that moment the good Elf looked as sober as she could then threw her heels up and her head down, and swung away furiously for a few seconds.
"Oho! It's you, is it? Well, things must be serious when Lawe comes a-gossiping to Madam Breeze. Well, well! Cheer up, cheer up, Mr. Sobersides!
"Shall we, inclined to sadness,
Strike melancholy's string?
Oh, no! we'll tune to gladness
And merrily, merrily sing
Tra, la!"
The Elf trilled these words to a sprightly strain, and wound up with a laugh, a wheeze and a cough. By this time her touch of seriousness had vanished, and she was swinging as lustily as ever.