"You see," resumed Laura, "I really _have_ some grounds for supposing
that my next incarnation will be in a lower organism. I shall be an
animal of some kind. On the other hand, I haven't been a bad sort in my
way, so I think I may count on being a nice animal, something elegant and
lively, with a love of fun. An otter, perhaps."

"I can't imagine you as an otter," said Amanda.

"Well, I don't suppose you can imagine me as an angel, if it comes to
that," said Laura.

Amanda was silent. She couldn't.

"Personally I think an otter life would be rather enjoyable," continued
Laura; "salmon to eat all the year round, and the satisfaction of being
able to fetch the trout in their own homes without having to wait for
hours till they condescend to rise to the fly you've been dangling before
them; and an elegant svelte figure--"

"Think of the otter hounds," interposed Amanda; "how dreadful to be
hunted and harried and finally worried to death!"

"Rather fun with half the neighbourhood looking on, and anyhow not worse
than this Saturday-to-Tuesday business of dying by inches; and then I
should go on into something else. If I had been a moderately good otter
I suppose I should get back into human shape of some sort; probably
something rather primitive--a little brown, unclothed Nubian boy, I
should think."