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"I'll look after your head," remarked Rolls.

"What would have become of your own, if you had had no matches?" Cobby demanded; "I hope they were safety matches: they deserved that name."

"Ho!" broke out of Rolls, in whom laughter was a rare and a volcanic event.... "Oh, Jimmy! the wound hurts when I laugh."

"I make painful jokes, I see," Cobby remarked, on which yet another "Ho!" broke out of Rolls in a pain of explosion.

Then Cobby's grandfather's-clock struck eleven; his man bore in a supper, consisting mostly of bread and cheese—for so Cobby lived—and, as they sat at table, he asked of Rolls: "But is she—fair at all to look upon, this minx, my cousin?"

"Spiciewegiehotiu is a beauty," Rolls solemnly asserted. "She is—— Did your mother's family, by the way, have black hair?"

"Dark. My mother's was black."

"So is Spicie's. Looks Spanish to me rather—staid face—pale, strong-boned, grave—— I've seen her laugh merrily, but never saw her smile. Sits leaning sideways, her finger-joints at her cheek—steady eyes, meditating on you, judging, dark-blue—noble brow, for though you can't see much of it for the two wings of hair that cover it, there's a lane between the wings, running up the side of the brow where the hair-parting is, and at that lane you can spy the noble height and bulge of the brow; and the hair puffs over the ears, which puff may be what makes her Spanish-looking. And her sweet lips, boy, neatly fitted together, a little pressed—rose-leaves may be something like them—not red ones, pink ones—but I can't tell of the winningness and pull of 'em——"