Ian closed the book, and persistently refused to read more that day.

Another time he was reading, in illustration of something,
Wordsworth's poem, "To a Skylark," the earlier of the two with that
title: when he came to the unfortunate line,--

"Happy, happy liver!"--

"Oh, I am glad to know that!" cried Christina. "I always thought the
poor lark must have a bad digestion--he was up so early!"

Ian refused to finish the poem, although Mercy begged hard.

The next time they came, he proposed to "read something in Miss
Palmer's style," and taking up a volume of Hood, and avoiding both
his serious and the best of his comic poems, turned to two or three
of the worst he could find. After these he read a vulgar rime about
an execution, pretending to be largely amused, making flat jokes of
his own, and sometimes explaining elaborately where was no occasion.

"Ian!" said his mother at length; "have you bid farewell to your
senses?"

"No, mother," he answered; "what I am doing is the merest
consequence of the way you brought us up."

"I don't understand that!" she returned.

"You always taught us to do the best we could for our visitors. So
when I fail to interest them, I try to amuse them."