reseating himself, and, in his friendly emotion, wholly abstracted from
all consciousness of the suffering he had inflicted; "he will be a dove
of peace to your ark."

"I don't doubt it," said my father, ruefully; "only those doves, when
they are small, are a very noisy sort of birds--non talium avium cantos
somnum reducent. However, it might have been worse. Leda had twins."

"So had Mrs. Barnabas last week," rejoined the accoucheur. "Who knows
what may be in store for you yet? Here's a health to Master Caxton, and
lots of brothers and sisters to him."

"Brothers and sisters! I am sure Mrs. Caxton will never think of such a
thing, sir," said my father, almost indignantly; "she's much too good a
wife to behave so. Once in a way it is all very well; but twice--and as
it is, not a paper in its place, nor a pen mended the last three days:
I, too, who can only write cuspide duriuscula,--and the baker coming
twice to me for his bill, too! The Ilithyiae, are troublesome deities,
Mr. Squills."

"Who are the Ilithyiae?" asked the accoucheur.

"You ought to know," answered my father, smiling,--"the female daemons
who presided over the Neogilos, or New-born. They take the name from
Juno. See Homer, Book XI. By the by, will my Neogilos be brought up
like Hector, or Astyanax--videlicet, nourished by its mother, or by a
nurse?"

"Which do you prefer, Mr. Caxton?" asked Mr. Squills, breaking the sugar
in his tumbler. "In this I always deem it my duty to consult the wishes