What with dressing and washing the children, teaching them, giving them their meals, taking them out to walk, and keeping them amused at home--to say nothing of sitting sociably at work with the dame and her two girls in the afternoon--I am afraid I shall have few opportunities of doing my part of the book between breakfast and tea-time.

But when the children are in bed, and the farmer and his family are reading or dozing, I should have at least three unoccupied hours to spare.

So, if you don't mind putting off our working-time till after dark--" "There's the title!" shouted the doctor, jumping out of his chair as if he had been shot.
"Where ?" cried I, looking all round me in the surprise of the moment, as if I had expected to see the title magically inscribed for us on the walls of the room.
"In your last words, to be sure!" rejoined the doctor.

"You said just now that you would not have leisure to write from Mr.Kerby's dictation till _after dark._ What can we do better than name the book after the time when the book is written?
Call it boldly, _After dark._ Stop! before anybody says a word for or against it, let us see how the name looks on paper." I opened my writing-desk in a great flutter.

The doctor selected the largest sheet of paper and the broadest-nibbed pen he could find, and wrote in majestic round-text letters, with alternate thin and thick strokes beautiful to see, the two cabalistic words AFTER DARK.
We all three laid our heads together over the paper, and in breathless silence studied the effect of the round-text: William raising his green shade in the excitement of the moment, and actually disobeying the doctor's orders about not using his eyes, in the doctor's own presence! After a good long stare, we looked round solemnly in each other's faces and nodded.