As for mine, I would endeavour to entertain her with strange dreams of adventure, in which I figured in opaque forests, strangling wild beasts, or discovering and plundering the hoards of dragons; and sometimes I would narrate to her other things far more genuine--how I had tamed savage mares, wrestled with Satan, and had dealings with ferocious publishers.

Belle had a kind heart, and would weep at the accounts I gave her of my early wrestlings with the dark Monarch.

She would sigh, too, as I recounted the many slights and degradations I had received at the hands of ferocious publishers.

But she had the curiosity of a woman; and once, when I talked to her of the triumphs which I had achieved over unbroken mares, she lifted up her head and questioned me as to the secret of the virtue which I possessed over the aforesaid animals: whereupon I sternly reprimanded, and forthwith commanded her to repeat the Armenian numerals; and, on her demurring, I made use of words, to escape which she was glad to comply, saying the Armenian numerals from one to a hundred, which numerals, as a punishment for her curiosity, I made her repeat three times, loading her with the bitterest reproaches whenever she committed the slightest error, either in accent or pronunciation, which reproaches she appeared to bear with the greatest patience.

And now I have given a fair account of the manner in which Isopel Berners and myself passed our time in the dingle..