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Alcides, who, when choosing a bride from Olympus,. 

 should have chosen Minerva, but selected Hebe; but 

 then, who ever loved a woman for her solid virtues ? 

 Who ever fell a victim to punctuality, patience, and 

 frugality? It is other and different qualities which 

 ensnare the heart, though the steady and reliable 

 traits may hold it, I dare say, when once captured. 

 Don't you know that Berkley once said, ' Hang it, 

 Madam, (only he used a naughtier word) ' who ever 

 fell in love with attributes.?' 



Master Gould, at any rate, selected Rachel in- 

 stead of Leah, and I had to remove the latter lady 

 to preserve her life. I put them into a large and well- 

 bushed compartment in company with a lot of other 

 Australians. The aviary faces due South and is, to 

 a mere mortal, terribly suggestive of the infernal 

 regions, but then Gouldians like that. In fact, you 

 can't make things too hot for them. I have kept 

 them out of doors in summer-time, but I have always 

 had an uneasy feeling each morning on rising that I 

 might have to say with David, ' I went by and lo, he 

 was gone ! ' and Master Gould is now a gentleman 

 with whom I take no risks. He wants heat, and I 

 give it him. lu the matter of housing birds, the 

 motto of some people seems to be Clough's sarcastic 

 paraphrase of the Sixth Commandment: 



"'Thou shalt not kill'; but needst not strive 

 Officiously to keep alive!" 



I do not belong to this category. Whenever I hear of 

 Goulds being out in all weathers, it reminds me of 

 the Oxford undergraduate who wrote in his exam., in 

 reply to a question in a Scripture paper, 'These facts 

 are not recorded in the Gospels, and there is no 

 allusion to them in the Fathers, but they are fully 

 detailed by Dean Farrar'! Of course, it may all be 

 perfectly true, but I cannot afford to try. 



[Lady Dunleath, Mr. Meade - Waldo, and many 



