upon the fairy figure: “do you object, Rosa, to her feeling that interest?” 

 “Object? my dear Eddy! But really, doesn’t she hate boilers and things?” 

 “I can answer for her not being so idiotic as to hate Boilers,” he returns with angry emphasis; “though I cannot answer for her views about Things; really not understanding what Things are meant.” 

 “But don’t she hate Arabs, and Turks, and Fellahs, and people?” 

 “Certainly not.” Very firmly. 

 “At least she must hate the Pyramids? Come, Eddy?” 

 “Why should she be such a little—tall, I mean—goose, as to hate the Pyramids, Rosa?” 

 “Ah! you should hear Miss Twinkleton,” often nodding her head, and much enjoying the Lumps, “bore about them, and then you wouldn’t ask. Tiresome old burying-grounds! Isises, and Ibises, and Cheopses, and Pharaohses; who cares about them? And then there was Belzoni, or somebody, dragged out by the legs, half-choked with bats and dust. All the girls say: Serve him right, and hope it hurt him, and wish he had been quite choked.” 

 The two youthful figures, side by side, but not now arm-in-arm, wander discontentedly about the old Close; and each sometimes stops and slowly imprints a deeper footstep in the fallen leaves. 

 “Well!” says Edwin, after a lengthy silence. “According to custom. We can’t get on, Rosa.” 

 Rosa tosses her head, and says she don’t want to get on. 

 “That’s a pretty sentiment, Rosa, considering.” 

 “Considering what?” 

 “If I say what, you’ll go wrong again.” 

 “You’ll go wrong, you mean, Eddy. Don’t be ungenerous.” 

 “Ungenerous! I like that!” 

 “Then I don’t like that, and so I tell you plainly,” Rosa pouts. 

 “Now, Rosa, I put it to you. Who disparaged my profession, my destination—” 

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