“So I did, and gave you Little Bolivar on yours.  Now I’ll have Alsace and Lorraine, 1870.  There are seven of them, so hold still and see how you like it,” returned Jack, picking the large, pale stamps one by one from Jill’s forehead, which they crossed like a band.

She bore it without flinching, saying to herself with a secret smile, as she glanced at the hot fire, which scorched her if she kept near enough to Jack to help him, “This really is being like a missionary, with a tattooed savage to look after.  I have to suffer a little, as the good folks did who got speared and roasted sometimes; but I won’t complain a bit, though my forehead smarts, my arms are tired, and one cheek is as red as fire.”

“The Roman States make a handsome page, don’t they?” asked Jack, little dreaming of the part he was playing in Jill’s mind.  “Oh, I say, isn’t Corea a beauty?  I’m ever so proud of that;” and he gazed fondly on a big blue stamp, the sole ornament of one page.

“I don’t see why the Cape of Good Hope has pyramids.  They ought to go in Egypt.  The Sandwich Islands are all right, with heads of the black kings and queens on them,” said Jill, feeling that they were very appropriate to her private play.

“Turkey has crescents, Australia swans, and Spain women’s heads, with black bars across them.  Frank says it is because they keep women shut up so; but that was only his fun.  I’d rather have a good, honest green United States, with Washington on it, or a blue one-center with old Franklin, than all their eagles and lions and kings and queens put together,” added the democratic boy, with a disrespectful slap on a crowned head as he settled Heligoland in its place.

“Why does Austria have Mercury on the stamp, I wonder?  Do they wear helmets like that?” asked Jill, with the brush-handle in her mouth as she cut a fresh batch of flaps.

“May be he was postman to the gods, so he is put on stamps now.  The Prussians wear helmets, but they have spikes like the old Roman fellows.  I like Prussians ever so much; they fight splendidly, and always beat.  Austrians have a handsome uniform, though.”

“Talking of Romans reminds me that I have not heard your Latin for two days.  Come, lazybones, brace up, and let us have it now.  I’ve done my compo, and shall have just time before I go out for a tramp with Gus,” said Frank, putting by a neat page to dry, for he studied every day like a conscientious lad as he was.

“Don’t know it.  Not going to try till next week.  Grind away over your old Greek as much as you like, but don’t bother me,” answered Jack, frowning at the mere thought of the detested lesson.

But Frank adored his Xenophon, and would not see his old friend, Caesar, neglected without an effort to defend him; so he confiscated the gum-pot, and effectually stopped the stamp business by whisking away at one fell swoop all that lay on Jill’s table.

“Now then, young man, you will quit this sort of nonsense and do your lesson, or you won’t see these fellows again in a hurry.  You asked me to hear you, and I’m going to do it; here’s the book.”