relate, was preëminently pertinacious. The two found a deal to talk
about, somehow, though it is doubtful if many of their comments were of
sufficient importance or novelty to merit record. Then, also, he often
read aloud to her from lovely books, for the colonel read admirably and
did not scruple to give emotional passages their value. _Trilby_,
published the preceding spring in book form, was one of these books, for
all this was at a very remote period; and the _Rubaiyat_ was another,
for that poem was as yet unhackneyed and hardly wellknown enough to be
parodied in those happy days.

Once he read to her that wonderful sad tale of Hans Christian Andersen's
which treats of the china chimney-sweep and the shepherdess, who eloped
from their bedizened tiny parlor-table, and were frightened by the
vastness of the world outside, and crept ignominiously back to their fit
home. "And so," the colonel ended, "the little china people remained
together, and were thankful for the rivet in grandfather's neck, and
continued to love each other until they were broken to pieces."

"It was really a very lucky thing," Patricia estimated, "that the
grandfather had a rivet in his neck and couldn't nod to the
billy-goat-legged person to take the shepherdess away into his cupboard.
I don't doubt the little china people were glad of it. But after
climbing so far--and seeing the stars,--I think they ought to have had
more to be glad for." Her voice was quaintly wistful.

"I will let you into a secret--er--Patricia. That rivet was made out of
the strongest material in the whole universe. And the old grandfather
was glad, at bottom, he had it in his neck so that he couldn't nod and
separate the shepherdess from the chimney-sweep."