“You persist in believing that they must inevitably be horrid?” said he, softly stroking her rosy cheek with his open palm.

“I persist in begging that you will not expect me to adopt the acrobatic style, or require me to instantly attain sanctification per saltum! You must be satisfied with the assurance that you are indeed my ‘Royal Highness,’ and that in my creed it is written the king can do no wrong.  There, dear, I am not at all addicted to humble pie, and I have already disposed of a large and unpalatable slice.”

She made a grimace, whereat he smiled, kissed her again, and answered very gently: 

“Will you permit me to put an appendix to your creed?  ’Charity suffereth long, and is kind; is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil.’  My sister, I want you to help me.  In some things I find myself as powerless without your co-operation as a pair of scissors with the rivet lost; I cannot cut through obstacles unless you are in your proper place.”

“For shame, you spiteful Pequod! to rivet your treacherous appeal with so sharply pointed an illustration!  Scissors, indeed!  I will be revenged by cutting all your work after a biased fashion.  How would it suit you, reverend sir, to take the rivet out of my tongue, and repair your clerical scissors?”

“How narrowly you escaped being a genius!  That is precisely what I was about proposing to do, and now, dear, be sure you bid adieu to all bias.  Elise, I received a letter two days since, which annoyed me beyond expression.”

“I inferred as much, from the vindictive energy with which you thrust it into the fire, and bored it with the end of the poker.  Was it infected with small-pox or leprosy?”

She opened her work basket, and began to crochet vigorously, keeping her eyes upon her needle.

“Neither.  I destroyed it simply and solely because it was the earnest request of the writer, that I should commit it to the flames.”

“Par parenthese! from the beginning of time have not discord, mischief, trouble—­been personified by females?  Has there been a serious imbroglio since the days of Troy without some vexatious Helen?  Now don’t scold me, if in this case I conjecture,—­He?  She?  It?”

“The letter was from a mother, pleading for her child, whom I several years ago promised to protect and to befriend.  Subsequent events induced me to hope that she would never exact a fulfilment of the pledge, and I was unpleasantly surprised when the appeal reached me.”

“Let me understand fully the little that you wish to tell me.  Do you mean that you were unprepared for the demand, because the mother had forfeited the conditions under which you gave the promise?”

“You unduly intensify the interpretation.  My promise was unconditional, but I certainly have never expected to be called upon to verify it.”

“What does it involve?”

“The temporary guardianship of a child ten years old, whom I have never seen.”