really--"
Here Rosa fell flat on her back in the deadest of faints. Her

limbs were rigid, her eyes glassy; what had Jerry been doing? It
must have been something very bad, for her to take on like that.

I scrutinised him carefully, while Charlotte ran to comfort the
damsel. He appeared to be whistling a tune and regarding the

scenery. If I only possessed Jerry's command of feature, I
thought to myself, half regretfully, I would never be found out

in anything.
"It's all your fault, Jerry," said Charlotte, reproachfully, when

the lady had been restored to consciousness: "Rosa's as good as
gold, except when you make her wicked. I'd put you in the

corner, only a stump hasn't got a corner--wonder why that is?
Thought everything had corners. Never mind, you'll have to sit

with your face to the wall--SO. Now you can sulk if you
like!"

Jerry seemed to hesitate a moment between the bliss of indulgence
in sulks with a sense of injury, and the imperious summons of

beauty waiting to be wooed at his elbow; then, carried away by
his passion, he fell sideways across Rosa's lap. One arm stuck

stiffly upwards, as in passionate protestation; his amorous
countenance was full of entreaty. Rosa hesitated--wavered--and

yielded, crushing his slight frame under the weight of her full-
bodied surrender.

Charlotte had stood a good deal, but it was possible to abuse
even her patience. Snatching Jerry from his lawless embraces,

she reversed him across her knee, and then--the outrage offered
to the whole superior sex in Jerry's hapless person was too

painful to witness; but though I turned my head away, the sound
of brisk slaps continued to reach my tingling ears. When I

looked again, Jerry was sitting up as before; his garment,
somewhat crumpled, was restored to its original position; but his

pallid countenance was set hard. Knowing as I did, only too
well, what a volcano of passion and shame must be seething under

that impassive exterior, for the moment I felt sorry for him.
Rosa's face was still buried in her frock; it might have been

shame, it might have been grief for Jerry's sufferings. But the
callous Japanese never even looked her way. His heart was

exceeding bitter within him. In merely following up his natural
impulses he had run his head against convention, and learnt how

hard a thing it was; and the sunshiny world was all black to him.
Even Charlotte softened somewhat at the sight of his rigid

misery. "If you'll say you're sorry. Jerome," she said, "I'll
say I'm sorry, too."

Jerry only dropped his shoulders against the stump and stared out
in the direction of his dear native Japan, where love was no sin,

and smacking had not been introduced. Why had he ever left it?
He would go back to-morrow--and yet there were obstacles: another

grievance. Nature, in endowing Jerry with every grace of form
and feature, along with a sensitive soul, had somehow forgotten

the gift of locomotion.
There was a crackling in the bushes behind me, with sharp short

pants as of a small steam-engine, and Rollo, the black retriever,
just released from his chain by some friendly hand, burst

through the underwood, seeking congenial company. I joyfully
hailed him to stop and be a panther; but he sped away round the

pond, upset Charlotte with a boisterouscaress, and seizing Jerry
by the middle, disappeared with him down the drive. Charlotte

raved, panting behind the swift-footed avenger of crime; Rosa lay
dishevelled, bereft of consciousness; Jerry himself spread

helpless arms to heaven, and I almost thought I heard a cry for
mercy, a tardy promise of amendment; but it was too late. The

Black Man had got Jerry at last; and though the tear of
sensibility might moisten the eye, no one who really knew him

could deny the justice of his fate.
"YOUNG ADAM CUPID"

NO one would have suspected Edward of being in love, but that
after breakfast, with an over-acted carelessness, "Anybody who

likes," he said, "can feed my rabbits," and he disappeared, with
a jauntiness that deceived nobody, in the direction of the

orchard. Now, kingdoms might totter and reel, and convulsions
change the map of Europe; but the iron unwritten law prevailed,

that each boy severely fed his own rabbits. There was good
ground, then, for suspicion and alarm; and while the lettuce-

leaves were being drawn through the wires, Harold and I conferred
seriously on the situation.

It may be thought that the affair was none of our business; and
indeed we cared little as individuals. We were only concerned as

members of a corporation, for each of whom the mental or physical
ailment of one of his fellows might have far-reaching effects.

It was thought best that Harold, as least open to suspicion of
motive, should be despatched to probe and peer. His instructions

were, to proceed by a report on the health of our rabbits in
particular; to glide gently into a discussion on rabbits in

general, their customs, practices, and vices; to pass thence, by
a natural transition, to the female sex, the inherent flaws in

its composition, and the reasons for regarding it (speaking
broadly) as dirt. He was especially to be very diplomatic, and

then to return and report progress. He departed on his mission
gaily; but his absence was short, and his return, discomfited and

in tears, seemed to betoken some want of parts for diplomacy. He
had found Edward, it appeared, pacing the orchard, with the sort

of set smile that mountebanks wear in their precarious antics,
fixed painfully on his face, as with pins. Harold had opened

well, on the rabbit subject, but, with a fatal confusion between
the abstract and the concrete, had then gone on to remark that

Edward's lop-eared doe, with her long hindlegs and contemptuous
twitch of the nose, always reminded him of Sabina Larkin (a nine-

year-old damsel, child of a neighbouring farmer): at which point
Edward, it would seem, had turned upon and savagely maltreated

him, twisting his arm and punching him in the short ribs. So
that Harold returned to the rabbit-hutches preceded by long-drawn

wails: anon wishing, with sobs, that he were a man, to kick his
love-lorn brother: anon lamenting that ever he had been born.

I was not big enough to stand up to Edward personally, so I had
to console the sufferer by allowing him to grease the wheels of

the donkey-cart--a luscious treat that had been specially
reserved for me, a week past, by the gardener's boy, for putting

in a good word on his behalf with the new kitchen-maid. Harold
was soon all smiles and grease; and I was not, on the whole,

dissatisfied with the significant hint that had been gained as to
the fons at origo mali.

Fortunately, means were at hand for resolving any doubts on the
subject, since the morning was Sunday, and already the bells were

ringing for church. Lest the connexion may not be evident at
first sight, I should explain that the gloomy period of church-

time, with its enforced inaction and its lack of real interest--
passed, too, within sight of all that the village held of

fairest--was just the one when a young man's fancies lightly
turned to thoughts of love. For such trifling the rest of the

week afforded no leisure; but in church--well, there was really
nothing else to do! True, naughts-and-crosses might be indulged

in on fly-leaves of prayer-books while the Litany dragged its
slow length along; but what balm or what solace could be found

for the sermon? Naturally the eye, wandering here and there
among the serried ranks, made bold, untrammelled choice among our

fair fellow-supplicants. It was in this way that, some months
earlier, under the exceptionalstrain of the Athanasian Creed, my

roving fancy had settled upon the baker's wife as a fit object
for a life-long devotion. Her riper charms had conquered a heart

which none of her be-muslined, tittering juniors had been able to
subdue; and that she was already wedded had never occurred to me

as any bar to my affection. Edward's general demeanour, then,
during morning service, was safe to convict him; but there was

also a special test for the particular case. It happened that we
sat in a transept, and, the Larkins being behind us, Edward's

only chance of feasting on Sabina's charms was in the all-too
fleeting interval when we swung round eastwards. I was not