’It is not I only who think most highly of child-like unquestioning faith, Maurice,’ said Claude—­’faith, that is based upon love and reverence,’ added he to Lily.  ’But come, the shower is over, and philosophers, or no philosophers, I invite you to walk in the wood.’

‘Aye,’ said Maurice, ’I daresay I can find some of the Arachne species there.  By the bye, Claude, do you think papa would let me have a piece of plate-glass, eighteen by twenty, to cover my case of insects?’

‘Ask, and you will discover,’ said Claude.

Accordingly, Maurice began the next morning at breakfast, ’Papa, may I have a piece of plate-glass, eighteen by—?’

But no one heard, for Emily was at the moment saying, ’The Westons are to dine here to-day.’

Claude and Maurice both looked blank.

‘I persuaded papa to ask the Westons,’ said Lily, ’because I am determined that Claude shall like Alethea.’

’You must expect that I shall not, you have given me so many orders on the subject,’ said Claude.

’Take care it has not the same effect as to tell Maurice to like a book,’ said Emily; ‘nothing makes his aversion so certain.’

’Except when he takes it up by mistake, and forgets that it has been recommended to him,’ said Claude.

’Take care, Redgie, with your knife; don’t put out my eyes in your ardour against that wretched wasp.  Wat Greenwood may well say “there is a terrible sight of waspses this year."’

‘I killed twenty-nine yesterday,’ said Reginald.

‘And I will tell you what I saw,’ said Phyllis; ’I was picking up apples, and the wasps were flying all round, and there came a hornet.’

‘Vespa Crabro!’ cried Maurice; ‘oh, I must have one!’

‘Well, what of the hornet?’ said Mr. Mohun.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ resumed Phyllis, ’he saw a wasp flying, and so he went up in the air, and pounced on the poor wasp as the hawk did on Jane’s bantam.  So then he hung himself up to the branch of a tree by one of his legs, and held the wasp with the other five, and began to pack it up.  First he bit off the yellow tail, then the legs, and threw them away, and then there was nothing left but the head, and so he flew away with it to his nest.’

‘Which way did he go?’ said Maurice.

‘To the Old Court,’ answered Phyllis; ’I think the nest is in the roof of the old cow-house, for they were flying in and out there yesterday, and one was eating out the wood from the old rails.’

‘Well,’ said Mr. Mohun, ’you must show me a hornet hawking for wasps before the nest is taken, Phyllis; I suppose you have seen the wasps catching flies?’

’Oh yes, papa! but they pack them up quite differently.  They do not hang by one leg, but they sit down quite comfortably on a branch while they bite off the wings and legs.’

‘There, Maurice,’ said Mr. Mohun, ’I had rather hear of one such well-observed fact than of a dozen of your hard names and impaled insects.’