"_Are you fond of cheese? Do you sometimes sigh For a really good Gorgonzola? Try,
"Try our one-and-ten, Wonderfully rotten, Tasted once, it never can Be again forgotten_!"
"_Oh, give me a toy" the baby said-- The babe of three months old,-- Oh, what shall I buy my little babee, With silver and with gold?"
"I would you buy a trumpet fine, And a rocking-horse for me, And a bucket and a spade, mother, To dig beside the sea."
"But where shall I buy these pretty things?" The mother's heart inquires. "Oh, go to Owens!" cried the babe; "They are the largest buyers."_
The subject of our last selection is "Melton Mowbray," which bore beneath its title due apologies to Mr. Swinburne:--
_"Strange pie, that is almost a passion, O passion immoral, for pie! Unknown are the ways that they fashion, Unknown and unseen of the eye, The pie that is marbled and mottled, The pie that digests with a sigh: For all is not Bass that is bottled, And all is not pork that is pie."_
Of all the goodness else that Henry and Angel were to owe in future days to Mr. Fairfax, there is not room in this book to write. But that matters little, for is it not written in the Book of Love?
One afternoon the step coming along the corridor was almost light enough to be Angel's, though a lover's ear told him that hers it was not. Once more that feminine rustle, the very whisper of romantic mystery; again the little feminine knock.
"Well, this is lovely of you, Myrtilla! But what courage! How did you ever dare venture into this wild and savage spot,--this mountain-fastness of Bohemia?"
"Yes, it was brave of me, wasn't it?" said Myrtilla, with a little laugh, for which the stairs had hardly left her breath. "But what a climb! It is like having your rooms on the Matterhorn. I think I must write a magazine article: 'How I climbed the fifty-thousand stairs,' with illustrations,--and we could have some quite pretty ones," she said, looking round the room.
"That big skylight is splendid! As close, dear lad, to the stars as you can get it? Are you as devoted to them as ever?"
"Oh, yes; but they don't get any nearer, you know."
"It's awfully good to see you again, Myrtilla," said Henry, going over to her and taking both her hands. "It's quite a long time, you know, since we had a talk. It was a sweet thought of you to come. You'll have some tea, won't you?"