for our unwelcome existence he might at the present hour be enjoying all the goods and gayeties of life: all that is, except Billy, who is insensible to innuendoes, and never sees or feels anything that is not put before him in the plainest terms. He cheerfully puts an end now to the awkward silence.

"I can tell you, if you marry Mr. Carrington, you will be on the pig's back," he says, knowingly addressing Dora. Billy is not choice in his expressions. "He has no end of tin, and the gamest lot of horses in his stables to be seen anywhere. Brewster was telling me about it."Nobody says anything.

"You will be on the pig's back, I can tell you," repeats Billy, with emphasis. Now, this is more than rashness, it is madness on Billy's part; he is ignorantly offering himself to the knife. The fact that his vulgarity has been passed by unnoticed once is no reason why leniency should be shown towards him a second time. Papa looks up blandly.

"May I ask what you mean by being 'on the pig's back'?" he asks, with a suspicious thirst for information.

"Oh, it means being in luck, I suppose," returns Billy, only slightly taken aback.

"I do not think I should consider it a lucky thing if I found myself on a pig's back," says papa, still apparently abroad, still desirous of having his ignorance enlightened.

"I don't suppose you would," responds Billy, gruffly; and, being an English boy, abhorrent of irony, he makes a most unnecessary clatter with his fork and spoon.

"_I_ know what papa means," says Dora, sweetly, coming prettily to the rescue. One of Dora's favorite _roles_ is to act as peacemaker on such public occasions as the present when the innate goodness of her disposition can be successfully paraded.

"It is that he wishes you to see how unmeaning are your words, and how vulgar are all hackneyed expressions. Besides"—running back to Billy's former speech—"you should not believe all Brewster tells you; he is only a groom, and probably says a good deal more than—than he ought."

"There!" cries Billy, with wrathful triumph, "you were just going to say 'more than his prayers,' and if _that_ isn't a 'hackneyed expression,' I don't know what's what. You ought to correct yourself, Miss Dora, before you begin correcting other people."

"I was _not_ going to say that," declares Dora, in a rather sharper 

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